Issues and Debates Flashcards
(41 cards)
Gender Bias - Alpha Bias
Differences between the sexes are real, enduring, fixed and inevitable. These may enhance/ undervalue members of either sex, typically females.
E.G. Wilson: Sociobiological theory of relationship formation - Sexual promiscuity in females seen as going against their nature, females preserve genes, males try to impregnate as many women as possible.
Gender Bias - Beta Bias
Ignoring or minimising differences between sexes (such as not including women in research).
E.G. Fight or Flight response - based exclusively on male animals as female hormones fluctuate.
Taylor et al: female biology has evolved to inhibit the fight or flight response. Females exhibit a tend and befriend response governed by the hormone oxytocin.
Gender Bias - Androcentrism
Consequence of beta bias. Female behaviour is misunderstood and even pathologised. Normal behaviour is judged according to a male standard.
Feminists object to pre-menstrual syndrome - medicalises female emotions, such as anger. But male anger is seen as a rational response to external pressures.
Evaluation of Gender Bias
✗ Gender biased research validates discriminatory practices - may provide a scientific justification to deny women opportunities within the work place/ wider society.
✗ Promotes sexism in research process - male researchers are more likely to have work published. Creates a bias in theory and research.
✓ Understanding of gender bias leads to reflexivity - may lead to greater awareness of the role of personal bias in shaping future research - embracing bias as an important aspect of the research process.
✗ Worrell argues gender bias can be avoided - women should be studied in meaningful, real-life contexts, genuinely participate, and have diversity in groups of women.
Cultural Bias
Psychological research often ignores differences between cultures.
- In 1992, 64% f the world’s 56,000 psychologists were American, most studies were conducted in America.
- Universality is assumed for results of Western research. Cultural differences in behaviour are seen as ‘abnormal’ and ‘inferior.’
Cultural Bias - Ethnocentrism
The belief in superiority of one’s own culture. Any behaviour that doesn’t conform to the (usually Western) model is deficient or underdeveloped.
Cultural Bias - Ainsworth’s Strange Situation
- Reflected only norms and values of American culture in attachment research. Misinterpretation of child-rearing practices in other countries which deviate from American norms.
E.G German mothers = cold, rejecting, rather than encouraging independence.
Cultural Bias - Respecting Cultural Relativism
Norms and values can only be meaningful and understood within specific social and cultural contexts.
Cultural Bias - Berry (1969)
- An ETIC approach looks at behaviour from outside a given culture and identifies behaviours that are universal.
- An EMIC approach functions from within certain cultures and identifies behaviours specific to that culture.
e.g. Ainsworth’s research = imposed etic.
Evaluation of Cultural Bias
✗ Distinction between individualism and collectivism - individualist cultures (US) value the individual and independence. Collectivist cultures (India) value the group and interdependence. However, this is too simplistic.
- Takano and Osaka found 14/15 studies comparing the US and Japan found no evidence of a distinction between the two types of culture.
✓ Cross-cultural research challenges Western assumption - promotes greater sensitivity to individual differences and cultural relativism. Conclusions are likely to have more validity if they recognise the role of culture.
✗ Cross-cultural research is prone to demand characteristics - in cultures without historical experience of research, local populations may be more affected by demand characteristics than Western participants - threatens validity.
Free Will
Humans can make choices and aren’t determined by biological/ external forces.
E.G. Humanistic approach.
Hard Determinism
(Fatalism) implies free will isn’t possible - all human behaviour is caused by internal or external events beyond our control.
E.G. Skinner - Free Will is an illusion.
Soft Determinism
All human action have causes, but behaviour can also be determined by our conscious choices.
Biological Determinism
Control from physiological (influence of autonomic nervous system on anxiety), genetic (mental disorders), hormones (role of testosterone in aggression) factors.
Environmental Determinism
We are determined by conditioning.
E.G. Bandura: children with violent parents are likely to become violent themselves, as a result of observation and imitation.
Psychic Determinism
Behaviour caused by unconscious conflicts that we cannot control.
E.G. Freud - unconscious conflicts repressed in childhood. Human behaviour is a result of innate drives (id, ego, superego).
Evaluation of Determinism
✓ Consistent with the aims of science: the notion that human behaviour obeys laws places psychology on equal footing with other established sciences.
✓ Prediction and control of human behaviour: development of treatments and therapies (e.g. treatments to manage schizophrenia). Experience of schizophrenia suggest some behaviours are determined.
✗ Hard determinism isn’t consistent with the legal system - offenders are morally accountable for their actions in law. This isn’t falsifiable - causes of behaviour will always exist even though they may not have been found yet.
Evaluation of Free Will
✓ We make choices in everyday life - gives face validity to the concept. Has a positive impact on mind and behaviour.
- Roberts et al. found adolescents with a strong belief of fatalism are more at risk of depression.
✗ Not supported by neurological evidence - brain studies of decision-making shows that our actions are determined before we are aware of them.
Nature-Nurture: Nature
Early nativists - Descartes - argued that human characteristics are innate, the result of heredity (Usually 0.5 heritability). Genetics and the environment are both important factors in IQ.
Nature-Nurture: Nurture
Environmental influences. Empiricists - Locke - argue the mind is a blank slate at birth upon which experience writes.
Lerner: different levels of the environment = defined in narrow prenatal forms, defined more generally through postnatal experiences.
Nature-Nurture: Interactionism
(e.g. attachment) A child’s innate temperament influences how the parent behaves towards them. Parent’s responses influence the child’s behaviour.
Nature-Nurture: Diathesis-stress model
Suggests mental disorder is caused by a biological vulnerability which is only expressed when coupled with an environmental trigger.
Nature-Nurture: Epigenetics
A change in genetic activity without changing the genetic code. Lifestyle and events we encounter (smoking, pollution, poverty) leave epigenetic ‘marks’ on our DNA - tell our bodies which genes to ignore - may influence the genetic code of our children
= third element of debate = life experience of previous generations.
Evaluation of Nature-Nurture
✓ Real world implications - recognising that human behaviour is both nature and nurture is a more reasonable way to approach the study and ‘management’ of human behaviour.
✓ Understanding nature-nurture relates to other debates: nativist perspective suggests ‘anatomy is destiny.’ Empiricists argue interaction with environment is all. These equate to biological and environmental determinism.
✓ Evidence for the gene-environment interaction: Scarr and McCartney: outlined 3 types of gene-environment interaction - passive, evocative, active. Interaction is different for each (e.g. passive = parents genes influence how they treat children)
✗ Confounding variable = unshared environments: even siblings raised within the same family will not have identical upbringings. Dunn and Plomin: individual differences mean siblings may experience life events differently (e.g. age, temperament).
