Issues and debates- Year 2 Flashcards
(21 cards)
What are the types of bias in gender bias?
Alpha bias, Beta bias
What is alpha bias?
Exaggeration of differences between two genders, often devaluing females in relation to males.
What is beta bias?
Ignorance or underestimation of differences between two genders, often occurring when female participants are not included in research. Can lead to assumptions that findings apply to both genders.
What is a limitation of gender bias in psychological research?
May create misleading misleading assumptions about female behaviour, validating discriminatory practices. this may give scientific justification to deny women the opportunities within the work place or wider society. Gender bias is not just a methodological problem, but may have consequences that affect the lives of real women.
What is ethnocentrism in cultural bias?
Belief in the superiority of one’s own cultural group. In scientific research this may be communicated through a view that any behaviour that does not conform to the (usually western) model, it is somehow underdeveloped.
An example of cultural bias:
Studies of conformity (Asch) and obedience (Milgram) revealed different results when replicated in parts of the world outside the U.S.
What is cultural bias?
If the standard of a behaviour is only judged from one standpoint of one particular culture, inevitably any cultural differences in behaviour are seen as “abnormal” or “inferior”
An example of ethnocentrism:
Ainsworth has been criticised for only reflecting the norms of American culture in attachment research. Her research led to the misinterpretation of child-rearing practices in other countries that deviated from the American norm. For example, German mothers were seen as cold rather than encouraging independence. Thus, the strange situation was revealed as inappropriate measure of attachment-type for non-American children.
What is an Etic approach?
Behaviour from outside a given culture, identifying behaviours that are universal.
What is an Emic approach?
Functions from within certain cultures and identifies behaviours that are specific to that culture.
What is free will?
Th idea that we are self-determining. Human beings are free to choose their thoughts and actions. Free will implies that we reject biological and environmental influences on our behaviour, this is the humanistic approach.
What is soft determinism?
All human action has a cause but but people have conscious mental control over behaviour.
What is hard determinism?
All human action has a cause and it should be possible to identify these causes. This is compatible with the aims of science which assume what we do is dictated by internal/external forces we cannot control.
What is biological determinism?
Control from physiological, genetic, and hormonal processes.
What is environmental determinism?
We are determined by conditioning.
What is psychic determinism?
We are directed by unconscious conflicts. Freud believed that free will is an illusion. Freud’s psychic determinism sees behaviour as determined by unconscious conflicts in childhood.
What is the relative importance of the nature-nurture debate?
The debate is impossible to answer because environmental influences in a child’s life begins at conception.
What is interactionalism?
the relative contribution from each influence. E.g. the interactional approach to attachment sees the bond between infant and parent bond as a “two-way street”
What is Holism?
The view shared by humanistic psychologists that people and behaviours should be studied as a whole system rather than separately. They see successful therapy as bringing together all aspects of the whole person.
What is reductionism?
Breaking down behaviour into constituent parts. This is based on the scientific principle of parsimony- all phenomena should be explained by using the simplest principles.
