Issues & Debates

Question 1

Cultural relativism

Answer 1

the idea that norms and values, as well as ethics and moral standards can only be meaningful and understood within specific social and cultural contexts

Question 2

Ethnocentricism

Answer 2

judging other cultures by the standards and values of one’s own culture. In it’s extreme form it leads to the belief of superiority, prejudice and discrimination

Question 3

Holism

Answer 3

An argument/theory that proposes it only makes sense to study an indivisible system rather than its constituent parts

Question 4

Universality

Answer 4

Any underlying characteristic of humans that is capable of being applied to all, despite differences of experience and upbringing

Question 5

Reducing cultural bias

Answer 5

Taking on an emic approach - functions within certain cultures and identifies behaviour that are specific to that culture.
Cultural relativism - only make sense from the perspective of the culture (meaningful and understood only in this way) within the context of the specific culture

Question 6

Psychic determinism

Answer 6

The belief that behaviour is caused by unconscious conflicts that we cannot control.
Freud argued free will is an illusion - human behaviour is determined by unconscious conflicts repressed in childhood.
Genital stage? Unresolved conflict leads to difficulty forming heterosexual relationships

Question 7

Nomothetic approach

Answer 7

Attempts to study human behaviour through the development of general principles and universal laws

• Overlooks the richness of the human experience and accused of losing the whole person within psychology
• lab studies: pps treated as a series of scores rather than individual people with subjective experiences

Question 8

Biological reductionism

Answer 8

Attempts to explain social and psychological phenomena at a lower biological level (genes, hormones)

• HR is a narrow measure of excitement - could’ve been anxious. Excitement is made up of many other components, how we feel and behave rather than HR
• Develop a questionnaire (likert scale) where people in the queue rate their excitement on a scale of 0-10
• Conduct observations using behavioural categories (smiling, jumping up and down) that suggest a person is excited and tally up how many they’ve seen

Question 9

Nature v nurture AO1

Answer 9

Concerned with the extent to which aspects of behaviour are a product of inherited or acquired characteristics.

• Nature: human characteristics are innate, the result of heredity
• Nurture: any influence on behaviour that is non-genetic. Ranges from pre-natal influences in the womb through to cultural and historical influences at societal level.
• Relative importance of heredity & environment - so closely intertwined that it makes little sense to separate the two.
• Twin studies: high concordance rates, difficult to tell whether they’re a result of shared genetics or upbringing.
• In recent years, psychologists are more concerned with the relative contribution of each = the interactionist approach/ the diathesis stress model

Question 10

Nature v nurture AO3 (determinism)

Answer 10

-extreme determinism stance suggests that ‘anatomy is destiny’ - our inherited genes determine our behaviour.
This has led to an attempted link of race, genetics & intelligence = the application of eugenics

Question 11

Nature v nurture AO3 (shaping behaviour)

Answer 11

Empiricist would suggest any behaviour can be changed by altering environmental conditions, behaviour shaping.

• has led to practical application in therapy (token economy systems) whereby behaviours are selectively reinforced
• yet, may lead to advocate a model of society that controls and manipulates its citizens using these techniques

Question 12

Nature v nurture AO3 (separating N&N)

Answer 12

• attempting to separate the influence of the environment is complicated
• even siblings raised within the same family may not experience the same upbringing i.e. age/temperament means they’d experience life events differently
• explains why MZ twins don’t show perfect concordance rates

Question 13

Nature v nurture AO3

Answer 13

People create their own realities by actively selecting environments that are appropriate for their nurture

• naturally extroverted child will feel more comfortable & gravitate towards children who show similar extroverted behaviours. This env effects development
• impossible & illogical to separate N&N influences.