PY3 Exam Questions

Question 1

What are the disadvantages of the scientific method?

Answer 1

It is artificial. The control makes them less natural.
Low ecological validity.
Experimenter bias
Experimenter effects
Demand characteristics. 
Evaluation apprehension. 
Lack of generalisability. 
Social desirability bias. 
Lack of mundane realism.

Question 2

Ethical issues in the use of human participants

Answer 2

Deception. 
Lack of protection from harm 
Lack of informed consent
Lack of the right to withdraw 
Lack of confidentiality

Question 3

What are the advantages of the scientific method?

Answer 3

Can be considered scientific if it collects data in an objective, controlled manner.
Greater control over extraneous variables in order to produce fewer confounding variables.
Greater control allows the researcher to establish cause and effect relationships.
Greater internal reliability.
Greater reliability.
Greater objectivity.
Quantitative data obtained easier to analyse.
A lot of apparatus can be used.
Participants can be chosen.
Animals can be studied.

Question 4

Dealing with ethical issues when using human participants in research

Answer 4

Protection from harm- cost-benefit analysis, debrief participants, inform them of the right to withdraw, inform them about the study initially.

Lack of informed consent- presumptive consent, prior general consent, debrief must be given.

Deception- use of role play, inform participants generally.

Confidentiality- inform participants that their details will be kept in total confidence.

Right to withdraw- have to inform participants that they have the right to withdraw at any time and there is no pressure for them to continue.

Debriefing- aims to restore participants to restore participants to the same state they were in when they entered the investigation.

Question 5

Ethical issues in the use if non-human animals in research,

Arguments for the use of animals

Answer 5

Greater control 
Objectivity 
Less of an ethical issue 
Similarity 
Legislation and guidelines
Use of Bateson decision cube- 3 criteria; the quality of research to be carried out has to be at the highest level, any animal suffering must be kept to a minimum, the research must offer benefit to human kind.

Question 6

Ethical issues in the use of non-human animals in research,

Arguments against the use if animals

Answer 6

Cannot always apply to humans
Speciesism
Ethics

Question 7

Ethical issues arising from two applications of psychology in the real world

Answer 7

Military and advertising
Advertising- psychology has been used by advertisers to make potential customers develop a need for the product to make the product stand out from others, to persuade us to buy the product and the convince us that we need to keep buying it. It can be argued that these techniques create ethical issues as they make us believe something that is essentially not true. They deceive us.

Military- use methods of psychology in interrogation techniques, involving methods of sensory deprivation and brainwashing which obviously lead to the ethical issue of causing harm.