issues and ethical debates Flashcards
how many types of gender bias are there
2
what are the 2 type of gender bias
alpha bias and beta bias
alpha bias
when differences between genders are overexaggerated
beta bias
difference between males and females are minimalised or ignored
what does bias mean
showing favouritism to one group
gender bias
showing favouritism towards or prejudice against a particular gender
what is it called when theories are centered on or dominated by males. normal behaviour is judged according to males standard and females behaviour are often judged as abnormal
androcentrism
androcentrism
theories are centered on or dominated by males. normal behaviour is judged according to males standard and females behaviour are often judged as abnormal
alpha + beta bias are consequences of
androcentrism
strengths of gender bias
strength of gender bias in psychological research is that it allows researchers to propose solution to the problem.
e.g. some psychologists attempt to develop theories that emphasises the importance and value of women rather than belittle them.. This is supported by cornwell et al who noted that females are better learning as they were more attentive and organised. This types of research helps to reduce or challege gender sterotypes.
limitations of gender bias
1) it could create misleading assuimption as maccoby and jacklin has found that girls had better verbal abilities and boys had spatial abilities and these where are innate.
however joel et al carried our brain structure and found no difference in brain structure. Therefore we must be careful in assuming research findings biological facts when they be better explained at social stereotypes
cultural bias definition
tendency to judge ppl interms of one’s own cultural assumption
definition of ethnocentrism
seeing the world only from one’s own culture perspective is both normal and correct
etic approach
assume to apply in one culture, universally
imposed etic approach
when a construct of one culture is seen inappropriate to each other
emic approach
only applied to one culture, so they can vary from places to place
cultural relativism
regarding beliefs and values, practices cultures from that viewpoint
one strength of culture bias
one strength is the emergence of cultural psychology which is the study of how people are shaped by their cultural experiences. This field incorporates work from other disciplines such as anthropology, sociology and political science. They aim to to avoid ethnocentrism assumption by taking an emic approach and conducting research and focuses on cross culture. these suggest that modern psychologist are mindul of modern implication and trying to avoid them.
limitation of culture bias
one limitation is that most studies in psychology are culturally biased. for example Asch and Milgrams studies were carried out in America on had used white, middle classed males. However replication of their studies have found other results. Replication of Aschs studies in a collectivist culture found higher conformity level than the original study which was individualist culture. This suggests that research carried out in social influence should only be applied to indiviualist culture.
strength of free will
Humanist psychologists argue against the determinism view, claiming that humans have self-determination and free will and that behaviour is not the result of any single cause. Furthermore, there is plenty of evidence to support humanist psychologists. For example, identical twin studies typically find an 80% similarity in intelligence scores and a 40% similarity in the likelihood of depression. However, as identical twins share 100% of their genes, these results suggest that 20% is caused by other (environmental) factors. This demonstrates that biological determinism is unable to explain any particular behaviour,
strength for determinism (freud)
Freud appears to support a deterministic point of view, in that he argued that the unconscious controls our actions and our thoughts, the goal of psychoanalysis is to help patients overcome that force. He argued that all of us have the potential to control our lives but that many of us are too afraid to do so, which means we give up our freedom and allow our lives to be governed by circumstance, other people, political ideology or irrational feelings. However, determinism is not inevitable, and Fromm sees the essence of human freedom in being the choice between good and evil.
strength for determinism (skinners theory)
the idea of free will has attracted similar criticisms. Some psychologists, such as Skinner, argue that free will is an illusion. Skinner insisted that our behaviour is in fact environmentally determined, even if we are unable (or unwilling) to admit it. Also, more recent evidence provides some support for Skinner’s claim. For example, Libet et al. (1983) found that the motor regions of the brain become active before a person registers conscious awareness of a decision, i.e. the decision to move the finger was actually a pre-determined action of the brain. This strongly suggests that many responses are biologically determined and that although we may believe that we have free will, Skinner’s claim that free will is an illusion, may be correct.
strength for nature
concordance rate provides strong support for the nature arguement. Gottesman found that the concordance rate for identical twins (monozygotic) is 48% and 17% for non-identical twins (dizygotic twin) for a genetic disorder scizophrenia. This suggests that schizophrenia is a genetic disorder as identical twins share the exact same genes. This supports that natavism /nature, that knowledge and behaviour are inherited via our genetics.
strength for nurture
Social learning theory and Bandura’s bobo doll study provides evidence support for the nurture argument. Bandura showed that children would copy and imitate aggressive roles behaviour demonstrated by adult model roles. Bandura also demonstrated that other environmental factors such as the same sex model impacted their likelihood of imitation. This suports the nature argument as behaviour are gained through sensory experiment and their environment.
strength for holism
a strength for holism is its application to social psychology. For example, the effects of conformity to social rules and deindivualisation of the prisnor and gurads in the stanford prison experiment cannnot be explained by studying the participent as indiviuals. This is because the interaction between the people and the behaviour of the group that is important, conformity and deindiviualisation cannot be understood at an indiviual level. This suggests the holstic explanation provide a more complex and global understanding of behaviour than reductionsit approach.
limitation of holism
The holistic explanation attempts to blend different levels of explanation; holistic theory and approaches attempt to provide a complete and realistic understanding of human behaviour. However, holistic explanations do not establish causation because they do not examine behaviour in terms of operationalised variables that can be manipulated and measured. This means that holistic explanations are view as unscientific.
strength of reductionism
a reductionist approach often forms the basis if research. For example, behaviourist break down complex learning int simple stimulus-response links within the laboratory. This breaks behaviours up. Thus making it possible to conduct experiment or record observations in a meaningful and reliable way. This gives psychology greater creadibility in comparson to other science.
limiation of reductionism
oversiplified
interactionist approach
Schizophrenia can be explained by the stress-diathesis model. A child may have inherited the gene from their parents (nature). This means that they are predisposed to the gene.
However, environmental factors, (nurture) such as a stressful life event, may trigger the activation of the gene, which then results in a schizophrenic episode. There is growing evidence that the stress-diathesis model offers a more credible explanation for behaviour than looking at genetics and the environment as separate factors.
strength of idiogrraphic approach
the qualatative depth it produces gives an in depth and more compete accound of the indiviual. E.g, the case studies conducted HM and Clive wearing demonstrated that diff types of LTM re stored in diff areas of the brain leading to development of impoved physchologist theories further research of localisatio and memory. This strengthens the use of IA as it emphasises how important it is to approach things from a qualatitive approach
limitation if IA
is thta research method lacks scientific rigour. Eg case studies and unstrusctured interviews rely heavily on indiviual and subjective interpretation and therfore can be open to researcher bias. This suggests that IA is limited and lacks validiy when developing theories due to the unscientific nature of the approach.
strength of NA
ultaisation of highly scientific method. produces reliable data, by adopting standard conditions and having high levels of contol of extraneous and comfounding variables. This strengthens the useof NA as the findings wil have greater scientific creditablity due to their method of collection.
