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A Level Psychology > Issues And Debates > Flashcards

Issues And Debates Flashcards

1
Q

What is universality?

A

The idea that there are a range of psychological characteristics of human beings that can be applied to all of us despite differences of experiences, upbringing, gender or cultural background

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2
Q

What is gender bias?

A

Misrepresentation of the gender differences and similarities between males and females

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3
Q

What is being androcentric?

A

Having a biased view, taking the masculine perspective with male behaviour as normal. Due to psychology being historically conducted by men and on male samples

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4
Q

What is alpha bias?

A

Exaggeration of gender differences

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5
Q

What is beta bias?

A

Minimisation of gender differences

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6
Q

What is cultural bias?

A

Researchers judging other cultures from the researchers cultural perspective/value

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7
Q

What is ethnocentrism ?

A

Researchers take their own cultural behaviour as normal

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8
Q

What is cultural relativism?

A

Suggests behaviour can only be understood from the perspective of its cultural context

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9
Q

What did Heinrich (2010) find?

A

Psychological findings are argued to be universal but are conducted on WEIRD participant. Western, educated, industrialised, rich, democratic. 68 percent of research subjects in a sample of hundreds of studies in leading psychology journals came from the United States, and 96% from western industrialised nations

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10
Q

Gender evaluation in psychology?

A

Psychology is changing, with the increased prominence of female psychology researchers such as Loftus and ainsworth and the majority of influential historical studies now conducted controlling for gender. However, a significant amount of influential historical studies such as Asch and Milgram and Zimbardo only contained male participants

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11
Q

do researchers represent cultural differences?

A

Some researchers are attempting to represent cultural differences in behaviours such as Buss including 37 cultures in his study on mate preferences. There is also an increase in indigenous psychology, with researchers from varying cultures investigating their own cultures

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12
Q

Why does the majority of research take place in American colleges?

A

Easy to obtain the samples of American universities

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13
Q

What is determinism?

A

Idea that behaviour is internal and/or external forces that we have no control over

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14
Q

What are some deterministic forces?

A

Biological: genes, brain structure and neurochemsity

Envrionmental: conditional, social learning, cultural

Psychic: unconscious Freudian concepts such as the ID/ defence mechanisms

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15
Q

What are hard determinists?

A

Suggests all events and behaviour can be completely described and predicted with no role for personal decision making (free will).

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16
Q

What are soft determinists?

A

suggest there is still some role for conscious decision making as an expression of free will but behaviour are a result of personal conscious decision making in constrained by deterministic causal factors

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17
Q

What is free will?

A

Idea that our decisions and behaviours are a result of personal conscious decision making in constrained by deterministic causal factors

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18
Q

What is the scientific emphasis?

A

Emphasis on causal explanations depends on determinism. Using controlled conditions to demonstrate a causal relationship between manipulation of independent variables and changes in the dependent variable

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19
Q

Validity of free will?

A

High face validity, personal experience suggests we make our decisions and act after conscious thought. However determinists argue this is an illusion and decisions are made before we are consciously aware of them.

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20
Q

How does the criminal justice system use determinism?

A

Deterministic arguments for behaviour such as aggression has important implications for the justice system, undermining the principle that the individual is fully accountable for their actions.

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21
Q

How do deterministic theories impact our understanding?

A

Correct child rearing, provision of education and blame for addiction

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22
Q

Scientific approaches and determinism

A

Deterministic, behaviourist, biological, cognitive (soft), with only humanistic supporting free will, humanisms also rejects the scientific process suggesting free will is incompatible with science

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23
Q

does high concordance rate indicate causality?

A

Not 100%, potentially soft determinism or multiple deterministic factors that have not been fully identified

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24
Q

What does neurological research suggest?

A

Neurological EEG a research by Libert (1983) demonstrates brain regions decide to act before consciousness is aware of making the decision suggesting no free will. Has been backed up with FMRI, Hynes 2008

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25
Q

What is the nature nurture debate?

A

Extent behaviour is determined by the influence of hereditary nature factors (genes) or environmental nurture factors (experiences and the relative importance/ combination of both

26
Q

What is nature?

A

Philosophical nativists such as Descartes assume biological heredity (genes) is more important in determining behaviour, that much of knowledge is present from birth (innate)

27
Q

What is nurture?

A

Philosophical empiricists such as Locke assume learning/environment is more important in determining behaviour, as knowledge come from interaction with the world. Mind starts as a blank slate or tabula rasa

28
Q

What view do most psychologists take (nature vs nurture)

A

Interactionist approach suggesting behaviours are due to the combination and interaction nature and nurture influences

29
Q

What does the interactionist approach include?

A

Diathesis stress models, due to genetic factor we are at risk/ predisposed to a disorder like schizophrenia, but environmental triggers must be present in order for it to develop. Epigenetics, genes are not always activated at birth.

30
Q

What do studies show about nature

A

Evidence for biological, evidence for biological origin of behaviour include genetic evidence for disorders like schizophrenia, evolutionarily arguments for mate preference and neurotransmitter (dopamine/serotonin) evidence for aggression

31
Q

What do studies show about nurture?

A

Origin of behaviour are social learning theory experiments such as banduras bobo doll and behaviourists studies on conditioning processes.

32
Q

How are both nature and nurture deterministic?

A

Differ in which factors they suggest control behaviour. Biological, for nature and environmental for nurture with no role for free will.

33
Q

How do twin studies support nature?

A

MZ a twins often show higher concordance rates than DZ twins for behaviour and disorders despite both sets sharing similar environments

34
Q

What is reductionism?

A

Explaining behaviour in terms of its fundamental constituent explanations, this is based in the scientific principle of parsimony, that simple explanations for phenomena (like behaviour) are preferable to unnecessary complexity

35
Q

What are biological reductionists?

A

Psychologists suggest the most important fundamental explanations for behaviour are physical biology such as presence of genes/neurotransmitters

36
Q

What are environments reductionists?

A

Behaviourists suggest the most important fundamental explanations for behaviour are simple stimulus-response mechanisms of reinforcement. With even complex behaviour being a series of S-R relationships

37
Q

What are levels of explanation in psychology?

A

Idea that behaviours can be explained form a lower/fundamental level, focusing on basic components. To explanations for behaviour including higher more complex explanations for behaviour including social cultural.

38
Q

What is holism?

A

Explaining behaviour using a range of variables across multiple levels including fundamental biological/environmental but also complex variables such how socio cultural experiences influence behaviour

39
Q

How has the reductionist approach helped mental health?

A

Led to highly effective treatments such as isolating neurotransmitters resulting in effective drug therapy (biological). Counter conditioning (environmental) from identifying S/R

40
Q

What do humanistic psychologists argue?

A

Humans cannot be reduced to simple bio-mechanistic processes. Holism appreciates interaction and complexity of human experience that is missed in reductionism.

41
Q

How is the cognitive approach reductionist?

A

Simplifies simple mental processes to simplistic theoretical models of information processing. Ignoring the complexity of mental processes interacting with each other.

42
Q

How is psychology viewed more seriously as a science?

A

When it takes a reductionist approach in identifying fundamental variables, allowing fro greater objective test ability/falsifiability using experimental techniques.

43
Q

How have reductionist approaches helped us understand behaviour?

A

Helped us understand the cause of human behaviour such as aggression, relationships and schizophrenia but explanations may lack validity due to lacking complexity and context.

44
Q

What are ideographic approaches?

A

Qualitative techniques to study the individual in depth. Focus is on describing the uniqueness of the subjects personal experience, not providing general laws or theories of human behaviour that apply to all. Research methods include case studies, unstructured interviews and observations

45
Q

What approaches use ideographic techniques?

A

Humanistic and psychodynamic use ideographic techniques. Humanists see each individual as fundamentally unique, suggesting it is meaningless to produce general laws of behaviour. Freud did produce laws of behaviour but created these from ideographic case studies such as Little Hanz. Others use case studies for theory generation

46
Q

What are nomothetic approaches?

A

Quantitative techniques to study populations, then using this data construct general testable theories/laws/classifications that apply to all. Scientific experimentation that is objective and controlled is primary research method. Data produced is assessed with inferential statistics before it is accepted.

47
Q

Which approaches are seen as nomothetic?

A

Biological, behaviourist and cognitive as they assume the same principles apply across all humans and have developed and tested their theories by replicable experimental techniques

48
Q

What is replication?

A

Nomothetic techniques with clear procedures are replicable. Using statistical methods psychologists are able to generalise findings and predict future behaviour and create reliable treatments.

49
Q

What is superficial?

A

Nomothetic criteria tested do not give a full picture of an individual. Two people with an OCD diagnosis are likely to have very different personal experiences even if they have the same gene in common

50
Q

What is hypothesis generation?

A

Ideographic case studies cannot demonstrate the validity of a hypothesis due to the small sample. However unusual cases can generate new interesting areas of research, or overturn old incorrect theories.

51
Q

What is subjectivity?

A

Ideographic researchers intensive data collection techniques such as longitudinal case-studies can result in the researcher losing objectivity and introducing bias into the interpretation of the data collected.

52
Q

What is complementary?

A

Th strengths of both methods mean each is more appropriate in particular research circumstances. Using idiographic can give depth and description to established nomothetic laws of behaviour that provides high predictive value.

53
Q

What are ethical implications?

A

Considering how the findings from psychological research could go on to actually influence the lives of the individuals studied, the subgroups investigated and wider society

54
Q

What would effects on participants be for ethical implications?

A

Taking part in the research was directly distressing, stigma from friends, family or the media.

55
Q

What are the effect of ethical implications on the wider public?

A

Could result in subgroups becoming stigmatised or negative changes in wider society’s behaviour. Biased reporting could misrepresent the findings. Findings could be used by governments to justify political decisions/laws that disadvantage groups. Funding for future psychological research could be affected.

56
Q

What is social sensitivity?

A

Sieber and Stanley (1988) studies in which there are potential social consequences of implications, either directly for the participants in research or the class of individuals represented by the research

57
Q

How can the researcher consider ethical implications?

A

Following ethical guidelines which includes:
Protecting participants - offering support and ensuring confidentiality
Conducing a cost benefit analysis considering if the potential long term benefits of the research outweigh any short term costs.

58
Q

Examples of socially sensitive studies/theories?

A

Bowlby, effects on working mothers
Diagnosis of mental health, do cognitive explanations blame the victim
Biological theories of crime and aggression giving excuses to criminals
Evolutionarily explanations for relationships, legitimising a gender double standard

59
Q

How can researchers deal with Sieber and Stanley’s implications?

A

Carefully choosing the research question, methodology, how the information is going to be used in the institutional context and interpreted by society. This is a process of reflexivity, the researcher carefully considering their own role, responsibilities and influential position.

60
Q

What can excessive concern lead to?

A

Avoiding topics such as ethnicity, gender and sexuality leading to these groups becoming under-represented in psychological research.

61
Q

How does not considering the public response lead to negative effects for psychology?

A

Research by milgram, Zimbardo and Harlow damaged psychology’s reputation and this can lead to less funding

A Level Psychology (9 decks)

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