morning Flashcards
(7 cards)
gender bias
-bias undermines psychologists claim of universality-conclusions drawn can be applied to everyone, everywhere regardless of time or culture.
-alpha bias-psychological research that exaggerates differences-normally presented as fixed and inevitable.
-phallic stage boy and girl develop desire for opposite gender parent, castration anxiety and anxiety resolved when identifies with same sex parent. Girls identification is weaker-superego weaker-thus morally inferior
-Alpha bias can sometimes favour women-Chodorow suggests daughters and mothers have greater connectedness than sons and mums because of biological similarities-women develop better ability to bond and empathise with others.
-beta bias-ignores or underestimates differences.research findings apply equally to men and women even if women not included in research process.
-fight or flight, research male animals, female behaviour affected by hormonal changes due to ovulation.
-Taylor-‘tend and befriend response’. love hormone oxytocin is more plentiful in women-increase when stress
-emotional care provided solely by mothers
-androcentrism-male centred, when normal behaviour is judged according to male standard. psychology has presented a male dominant view of the world.American psychological association published list of 100 most influential psychologists of 20th century-6 women.
-womens behaviour misunderstood or pathologised(taken as sign of illness). Feminists have objected to diagnostic category ‘premenstrual syndrome’ as it medicalises women’s emotions. Mens anger seen as rational response to external pressures.
-L-Biological vs social explanation-Maccoby and Jacklin-presented findings of several gender studies -girls have superior verbal ability boys have superior spatial ability.Joel used brain scanning and found no such differences in brain structure or processing.speakers,doers
-c-Ingalhalingar suggested multitasking has biological truth-womens brain may benefit from better connections between right and left hemisphere
-L-women underrepresentated in university departments-particularly science-psychology undergraduate intake mainly women-lectures more likely men-research more likely to be conducted by men-may disadvantage ppts who are women -eg expect women to be irrational and unable to complete complex tasks-mean women underperform.
-l-Formanowicz-analysed more than 1000 articles relating to gender bias, published over 8 years-research on gender bias funded and published by less prestigious journals-fewer scholars then become aware of it and apply it within research.-still held true when gender bias compared with other forms of bias- and gender of author controlled and methodology used controlled.
culture bias
-Henrich reviewed hundreds of studies in leading psychological journals and found 68% ppts were American and 96% were from industrialised nations. Another review found that 80% were undergraduates studying psychology
-Henrich-WEIRD-western,educated,industrialised,rich,democracies
-ethnocentrism-belief in superiority of ones own cultural group
-Ainsworth and Bell-reflected norms and values of western culture-ideal attachment type showed moderate amounts of stress when mother figure away-led to misinterpretation of child rearing practices in other countries which were seen to deviate from American norm-japanese insecure, more likely to show distress when separated
-cultural relativism-Berry-drawn distinction between etic and emic approaches in study of human behaviour
-etic approach-outside given culture-desribe behaviours as universal
-emic approach-functions from inside culture-identifies behaviours specific to that culture.
-Ainsworth and Bell-imposed etic-studied behaviour in one culture and assumed ideal attachment type could be applied universally.
-psychologists should be much more mindful of the cultural relativism of their research.
-l-Asch and Milgram-Smith and Bond.
-C-individualist cultures value individuals ad independence where’s collectivist cultures eg India and China value society and needs of group-however Takono and Osaka found that 14 out of 15 studies comparing USA ad Japan found no evidence of individualism or collectivism-lazy and simplistic distinction
-s-Cultural psychology, according to Cohen is the study of how people shape and are shaped by their cultural experience-incorporates work from other disciplines eg anthropology,sociology,and political science -avoid ethnocentric assumptions and use emic approach-often alongside local researchers using culturally based techniques - tends to focus on just two cultures instead of larger scale studies
-l-Gould explained how first intelligence test led to eugenic social policies in US-psychologists used opportunity of WW1 to pilot their first IQ test on 1.75 million army recruits-many items on test ethnocentric eg assuming everyone would know names of US presidents. Recruits from South east Europe and African American received lowest scores-used to inform racist discourse about genetic inferiority of particular culture and ethnic groups. Ethnic minorities deemed ‘mentally unfit’ and ‘feeble minded’ in comparison to white majority-denied educational and professional opportunities as result.
free will and determinism
-are we set of internal/external influences that determine what we do and who we are.
-free will-self determining,free to choose their own thoughts and actions -doesnt deny there may be biological and environmental forces that exert some influence on behaviour-able to reject these forces because we are in control of thoughts and behaviour.Advocated by humanistic approach
-hard determinism-fatalism-all behaviour has cause, should be possible to identify and describe these causes
-soft determinism-Philosopher William James first to put this forward-important feature of cognitive approach-may be job of scientist to explain what determines our behaviour-doest deter from freedom we have to make own rational conscious choices
-biological determinism-biological approach eg autonomic NS on stress response or influence of genes on mental health. mediating influence of environment on biological structures.
-environmental determinism-Skinner-free will illusion-conditioning,our choice is sum of reinforcement contingencies
-psychic determinism-Freud-free will also illusion-influence of biological drives and instincts-human behaviour result of unconscious conflicts repressed in childhood-no such thing as accident eg slip of tongue.
-lab experiment-causal explanation
-s-Roberts looked at adolescents who had a fatalism view-at significantly greater risk of developing depression.external locus of control less likely to be optimistic
-l-Libet instructed patients to choose random moment to flick their wrist while he measured activity in brain -ppts had to say when they felt conscious will to move. Unconscious brain activity that came half a second before conscious decision to move
Nature-nurture debate
-combo of both, eg eye colour is about .80 heritable
-Bowlby claimed babies attachment type determined by warmth and continuity of parents love
-Kagan also proposed that a babies innate personality also affects attachment relationship
-nature creates nurture- they interact
-diathesis stress-biological or environmental vulnerability only expressed when coupled with biological or environmental trigger eg OCD
-epigenetics-change to genetic activity without changing genes themselves-caused by interaction with environment-aspects of lifestyle or events we encounter leave marks on our DNA(genes) which switch genes on or off-may influence genetic code of children and their children-therefore life experiences of previous generations is third element in debate.
-nature-hereditary-early nativists eg Descartes argued all human characteristics and some aspects of knowledge are innate. Psychological characteristics eg intelligence and physical characteristics eg eye colour
-nurture-influence of experience and environment, empiricists eg John Locke argue mind blank slate from birth-shaped by environment -important feature of behaviourist approach
-Lerner-identified different levels pf environment eg prenatal factors such as physical factors like smoking. More generally development is influenced post natally eg social conditions
-measured using correlation coefficient and is called concordance-provides estimate about extent to which trait inherited-called heritability
-heritability-measure of how much differences between people in a population is due to genes.Figure of 0.01 means genes contribute nothing to individual differences and 1 means genes contribute everything .
-general figure for heritability in IQ is about 0.5
-meta analysis of adoption studies by Rhee and Waldman found genetic influences account for 41% of the variance in aggression
-Plomin-people create their own nurture by seeking out an environment most suited to their nature-niche picking
-s-ww2-in 1944 nazis blocked distribution of food to Dutch people and 22,000 died of starvation-Dutch hunger winter-susses and Lin report that women who became pregnant during famine went on to half low birth weight babies-2x as likely to develop schizophrenia than more typical population rates
-s-Nestadt-ocd heritability 0.76-can inform genetic counselling-advice on likelihood and what they can do to prevent it
holism and reductionism
-holism-any attempts to subdivide behaviour or experience is inappropriate-this was view of Gestalt psychologists who are whole is greater than sum of its parts.Therefore knowing about parts(eg characteristic of person) may not help us understand essence of that person. Humanistic psychology-individual experiences-use qualitative methods to investigate self whereby themes are analysed rather than breaking concept into component behaviours.
-reductionism-analyse behaviour by breaking it down into constituent parts-based on scientific principle of parsimony (all behaviour should be explained using simplest/lowest level principles)
-levels of explanation-some more reductionist than others:
-Socio-cultural level eg ocd interrupts social relationships
-psychological level eg persons experience of anxiety
-physical level. eg movements such as washing ones hand
-environmental/behavioural level. eg learning experiences
-physiological level eg abnormal functioning of frontal lobes
-neurochemical level eg low serotonin
-behaviourist-environmental reductionism-stimulus response links, reducing behaviour to basic elements. eg social learning theory with food.
idiographic and nomothetic approach
-idiographuc approach -studied by individuals because by obtaining lots of detailed info about the individual we can understand human behaviour better
-nomothetic approach-study of large and varied groups to make generalisations about what is typical in different aspects of human behaviour
-idiographic-qualitative research-eg on depression-first hand accounts of small number of people-pets interviewed in depth-focus is on particular facet of human behaviour -data analysed and emergent themes are identified-may help other people, or mental health professionals determine best practice.
-Carl Rogers sought to explain process of self development including role of unconditional positive regard.-this was derived from in depth convos with clients in therapy. Little Hans
nomothetic-generalisation in order to create laws-create general principles of behaviour which could be applied in individual situations eg drug therapy.
-hypothesis formulates, samples of people are assessed in some way eg structured questionnaire-numerical data produced analysed for statistical significance-seek to quantify human behaviour.
-Behaviourist and biological-eg Skinner rats to develop general laws of learning -his research looked at one aspect of behaviour in a few animals but aim was to establish general laws. Biological approach may also use small samples eg Sherry’s research but aim was to establish general laws understanding hemispheric lateralisation.
-nomothetic-objective
-idiographic-it is peoples individual experience of their unique context which is important-not some underlying reality out there which is waiting to be discovered.
-s-researchers using idiographic approach also seek to objectify their methods ,eg triangulation is used whereby findings from a range of studies using different qualitative techniques are compared to increase validity. Modern qualitative researchers reflect upon own biases and preconceptions as part of research process
-l-knowing that there is 1% lifetime risk of developing schizophrenia doesnt tell us anything about what life is like for someone with it.
