Key Terms Flashcards
Alpha bias
Exaggeration of differences between genders or cultures, devaluing one gender or culture
Beta bias
Ignores gender/cultural differences
Feminist psychology
Argues that there are are biological differences that need to be recognised and are unavoidable
Indigenous psychologies
Employ psychologists from other culture they aim to study to adapt resources
Biological determinism
Behaviour is affected solely by physiological processes that are not under our conscious control
Environmental determinism
Our experience of choice is merely the sum total of reinforcement contingencies from our life
Psychic determinism
Behaviour is caused by innate drives and unconscious conflicts
Hard determinism
Completely disregards free will - everything is decided by biological and environmental factors
Soft determinism
Allows for the possibility of free will - we have inputs and influences but ultimately we get to choose
Universality
Recognises the difference but doesn’t value one gender over the other
Androcentrism
Research which views males as the norm and judges females based on male values and norms
Gynocentrism
Female equivalent of androcentrism
Moral responsibility
Moral accountability for behaviour
Nature
Innate and genetic influences
Nurture
Environmental influences acquired through interactions
Diathesis stress model
Biological vulnerability only expressed under certain environmental triggers
Holism
Emphasises the idea that any attempt to break up behaviour and experience is inappropriate as these can only be understood by analysing the person or behaviour as a whole
Reductionism
Simplifying an idea down into its constituent parts in order to explain it more easily
Levels of explanation
Different ways of viewing the same phenomena in psychology, some more reductionist than others
Biological reductionism
A form of reductionism which attempts to explain social and psychological phenomena at a lower biological level
Environmental reductionism
A way of viewing behaviour in terms of what is observable and in terms of learning
Gestalt psychology
The whole is greater than the sum of its parts - Germans 1920s+30s
Idiographic approach
Attempts to describe the nature of the individual as unique entities with own subjective experiences motivation ps and values without generalising to all
Nomothetic approach
Aims to produce general laws of behaviour using large samples of quantitative data
Research question
A source of ethical problems. Just by studying a particular subject, e.g. racial differences in IQ could cause issues
Conduct of research and treatment of participants
The ethical implications of your study for your participants e.g. revealing immoral or socially deviant behaviours
Institutional context
There may be pressure from the sponsors of a study to massage the findings and come to unscientific conclusions
Interpretation and application of findings
The way in which findings could be exploited by others for unethical purposes, such as support racist or sexist prejudice
Scientific determinism
The basic assumption of the scientific method that each cause has an effect
Experimental reductionism
The assumption that all other conditions and variables in a study are the same from one condition to the next
Paradigm
A model of the universe that we hold, such as the earth orbits the sun. Groundbreaking findings cause shifts
Publication bias/ file drawer effect
Where psychologists only publish research that supports their aims, and hide away any negative results, creating a biased perception
