Paper 3: Issues and Debates

Question 1

What is Alpha Bias?

Answer 1

When a theory exaggerates the difference between men and women.

Question 2

What is Beta Bias?

Answer 2

When research ignores the differences between men and women.

Question 3

Whats androcentrism and what studies is it found in?

Answer 3

The belief male psychology and behaviours are deemed the norm. Male studies on stress and flight or fight.

Question 4

What might be the causes of alpha and beta biases?

Answer 4

Publication characteristics may cause alpha bias, might be more interesting to find huge differences between men and women than no differences.

Question 5

What is emic?

Answer 5

The research of a culture from within that culture and not generalising the findings.

Question 6

What is etic?

Answer 6

Completing a universal study from an outsiders perspective and creating universal rules of behaviour.

Question 7

What is ethnocentrism? Give one example of a study that uses imposed etic.

Answer 7

The belief that one cultures behaviour is the norm and should be applied to all cultures. Mary Ainsworth’s Strange Situation.

Question 8

What is socially sensitive research? Whats an example of some of this research?

Answer 8

Research that has ethical implications beyond those involved in the study, eg targeting a specific group in relation to a negative way that could harm employment chances or negatively reflect the group as a whole. Burt’s research led to the 11+ exam in the UK, which tested for ‘natural’ intelligence. This exam would determine whether a child went to grammar school or not, which greatly affected the child’s life opportunities. Later, it emerged that some data in Burt’s study was made up, but the 11+ exam remained.

Question 9

What different approaches believe in Free Will vs Determinism?

Answer 9

An approach like humanism believes in free will while behaviourists or bio-psychologists believe in determinism.

Question 10

Whats the difference between soft and hard determinism?

Answer 10

Hard determinism is the believe we are completely controlled by physical processes and therefore nothing is in our control. Soft determinism is the belief that we can override these processes to some extent.

Question 11

How is biological determinism evidenced?

Answer 11

Many psychopathological disorders seem to have a genetic link as found in twin studies. Hormones have a strong effect on behaviour e.g. anger. people with OCD often have more activity in the prefrontal cortex.

Question 11

How is environmental determinism evidenced?

Answer 11

Reward and punishments are shown to have a strong effect on behaviour.

Question 12

What’s psychic determinism

Answer 12

Freudian belief every action is controlled by the unconscious mind, such as a Freudian slip.

Question 13

What are some strengths of free will?

Answer 13

We feel like we have free will and it would be reductive to state we don’t. Consistent with our moral instituations and legal system.

Question 14

What are the strengths of determinism?

Answer 14

Some neuroscientific experiments suggest humans do not have free will. For example, Soon et al (2008) used brain scans to measure brain activity as participants made a decision to press a button with either their left or right hand. The brain scans showed activity in the prefrontal and parietal cortices (areas associated with decision making) up to 10 seconds before the participants were consciously aware of their decision. Free will isn’t a physical concept and to prove its cause would result in a lack of free will, its a non-starter.

Question 14

What do nativists believe, and what studies back up their beliefs?

Answer 14

Believe our behaviour is explained through heredity causes. Bouchard (2013) found a strong correlation between IQ and the IQ of their family.

Question 15

What do empiricists believe, and what studies do they use to back up their beliefs?

Answer 15

Believe in nurture over nature. Psychologists like Skinner found a conditioning cause for behaviour.

Question 16

What’s interactionism?

Answer 16

The belief there is some overlap between nature vs nurture. For example there is a genetic correlation between those with OCD but not everyone with OCD has a family with OCD. The same goes for Bandura’s studies.

Question 17

Strengths of nativism?

Answer 17

Strong scientific evidence through gene mapping, twin & sibling studies.

Question 18

Strengths of empiricism?

Answer 18

Strong evidence for behaviourism in studies by behaviourists. Many sibling/non-identical twin studies have confounding variables.

Question 19

What is an example of holism and how it functions in relation to a concept?

Answer 19

The same phenomena can be explained at different levels. For example, the phenomena of depression:

Depression can be explained at a psychological level, such as sustained negative thoughts and low mood.
But these thoughts and emotions can also be explained biologically, by referring to things like neurons firing and neurotransmitters binding to receptors (e.g. low serotonin).
Explanatory levels can go even lower, though, such as by breaking down your description of neurons and neurotransmitters into basic physical components such as atoms.

Question 20

What are the approaches considered reductionist?

Answer 20

The biological approach to psychology leans heavily towards reductionism (biological reductionism). For example, a proponent of this approach might argue that behaviour can be explained entirely in terms of physical/biological causes without reference to higher levels of explanation, such as a person’s upbringing or cognitions.

Similarly, the behaviourist approach can be reductionist (environmental reductionism). For example, an extreme behaviourist might explain behaviour solely in terms of conditioning without reference to lower levels of explanation such as the underlying biology.

Question 21

Strengths of reductionism/weaknesses of holism:

Answer 21

More scientific: Reducing variables and behaviour enables psychological studies to be conducted in a scientific – i.e. repeatable, quantifiable, and objective – way. For example, reducing schizophrenia to dopamine activity enables researchers to objectively determine whether someone has schizophrenia and reliably measure whether a treatment is effective or not. In contrast, a holistic approach would make it more difficult to objectively determine whether or not someone has schizophrenia, as it would need to account for subjective experiences and other factors in addition to dopamine levels.
Practical applications: Reductive approaches have led to effective treatments. For example, biological reductionism has led to the creation of effective treatments for depression (e.g. SSRIs) and effective treatments for schizophrenia (e.g. antipsychotics).

Question 22

Weaknesses of reductionism/strengths of holism:

Answer 22

Overly simplistic: Reductionism may overly simplify behaviour and miss out important details, whereas holism takes account of the full range and context of behaviours. For example, the schizophrenia/dopamine example above is overly simplistic and would not be suitable as a valid diagnostic method by itself. Another example illustrating the limits of reductionism is the Stanford prison experiment, which could only be understood with reference to the whole situation – particularly the interactions between the individuals. A reductionist approach of only looking at a prison guard’s biology, for example, would miss the wider context of how the social role he was playing fed into that biological state.

Question 23

What is the difference between nomothetic and idiographic

Answer 23

The nomothetic vs. idiographic debate is about whether the best approach to psychology is to look at similarities between humans or the differences that make them unique.

Question 24

What is an example of the nomothetic approach being used to create classifications?

Answer 24

Classifications are a form of nomothetic generalisation. For example, the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders provides ways to categorise people as having mental disorders such as depression, anxiety, personality disorders, etc.

Question 25

What are the main characteristics of the nomothetic approach?

Answer 25

Derives general laws by looking at similarities between multiple people
Emphasis on quantitative over qualitative data
Prefers experiments with large sample sizes rather than individual case studies
The behaviourist, cognitive, and biological approaches are all highly nomothetic: They want to identify general laws
More objective, less subjective

Question 26

What are the main characteristics of the idiographic approach?

Answer 26

Looks at individuals as unique cases and describes them
Emphasis on qualitative over quantitative data
Prefers individual case studies and self-report methods over large-scale experiments
Most strongly associated with the humanistic approach to psychology and to a lesser extent psychodynamic approaches
More subjective, less objective

Question 27

Strengths of nomothetic approach/weaknesses of idiographic approach:

Answer 27

More scientific: Science is all about what can be objectively measured and repeated. By using these tools, the nomothetic approach is able to identify general scientific laws of human behaviour (similar to how physics identifies the general scientific laws that govern physical matter). These psychological laws have predictive power. For example, Milgram’s experiments tell you how likely someone is to obey an authority figure.
Practical applications: Identifying nomothetic laws of human behaviour is likely to have useful practical applications. For example:
Insights from Zimbardo’s prison study into how humans behave when in certain social roles could inform policies in prisons to reduce abuse.
Identifying similarities in brain chemistry across individuals with depression could yield new treatments that treat depression by addressing this brain chemistry.
Identifying common thought patterns among gambling addicts could lead to cognitive therapies that target these thought patterns and reduce gambling addiction.

Question 28

Weaknesses of nomothetic approach/strengths of idiographic approach:

Answer 28

Exceptions: Although the nomothetic approach is able to identify general laws, these laws do not apply universally to every human. For example, operant conditioning may explain why some people get addicted to cigarettes, but another person may smoke the same amount and not get addicted. Exceptions like this highlight the limitations of the nomothetic approach. In contrast, the idiographic approach is able to account for these deviations from the general laws because it treats the individual as unique.
Missing detail: The nomothetic approach is likely to miss important or interesting details about the people studied. In contrast, the idiographic approach produces rich data that gives a complete account of the individual studied (e.g. Freud’s case studies).