Issues & debates AO1 Flashcards
Nature vs Nurture
AO1
- Nativists - human characteristics are innate (heredity) from generational genetic transmission
- Heritability coefficient ranges 0 to 1.0 (extent to genetic basis of characteristics)
- However, nurture - environmental influence on characteristics. (may be pre-natal e.g. mothers physical state/postnatal e.g. social conditions)
Nature vs Nurture
AO2
1) Nature- Attachment , Bowlby says kids biologically programmed to form attachment for survival. Attachment behaviours naturally selected bc of genetic inheritance (heredity mechanisms)
2) Nurture - Schizophrenia , Bateson double-bind theory. Sz due to disordered family communication. (Conflicting messages of right and wrong, gives impression of world being dangerous and confusing) creating Sz symptoms.
Idiographic & Nomothetic
AO1
- Idiographic - Focus on individual and emphasise the unique personal experience of human nature. (qualitative, case study etc)
- Nomothetic - General laws based on study of large groups of people and statistical (quantitative) techniques.
Idiographic & Nomothetic
AO2
1) Idiographic - Memory, shallice and warrington KF accident, short term forgetting auditory forgot more than visual, STM multiple components, undermines MSMM
2) Nomothetic - psychopathology, bio explanations for disorders. Nomothetic to explain OCD and depression. Use bio treatments (drugs) to treat all.
Freewill and determinism
AO1
Free will - Suggests human beings are self-determining and free to choose our thoughts and actions. A view of human behaviour advocated by the humanistic approach.
Determinism - Suggests free will doesn’t explain behaviour at all, hard and soft versions. Three types of determinism; biological, physic and environmental.
Hard determinism- suggests all behaviour has a cause, should be possible to identify and describe the causes. Assumes that everything we think and do is dictated by internal or external forces that we cannot control.
Soft determinism - whilst acknowledging that all human action has a cause, people have conscious mental control over the way they behave.
Biological determinism - Refers to the idea that all human behaviour is innate and determined by genes.
Environmental determinism - The view that behaviour is determined or caused by forces outside the individual.
Psychic determinism - His particular brand of determinism sees human behaviour as determined and directed by unconscious conflicts, repressed in childhood.
Causal explanations - seeks to discover whether X causes Y, or whether the independent variable causes changes in the dependent variable.
Freewill and determinism
AO2
1) Freewill, psychopathology, Rogers client centred therapy. Rogers encourages clients to restore their conditions of worth by taking ownership of their free will and living life as the active agents they are.
2) Environmental determinism, Attachment, infant/caregiver relationship. It can explain the innate connection between a caregiver and an infant in relation to food and how these drives are reinforced both positively and negatively.
Reductionism and Holism
AO1
Reductionism- The belief that human behaviour can be explained by breaking it down into simpler component parts.
Levels of explanation - lowest=bio explanations, middle=psychological explanations, highest= social/cultural explanations.
Biological reductionism- Biological psychologists try to reduce behaviour to a physical level and explain it in terms of neurons, neurotransmitters, hormones, brain structure, etc.
Environmental reductionism- Simple building blocks of S-R (stimulus-response) associations and that complex behaviours are a series of S-R chains.
Holism- Means ‘whole’ or ‘entire’ and is the idea that human behaviour should be viewed as a whole integrated experience, and not as separate parts.
Reductionism and Holism
AO2
1) Environmental reductionism- schizophrenia.
