stats/studies issues and debates

Bowlby

Monotropic theory-

Attachment is innate- we are programmed to form one monotropic bond as quickly as possible (critical period) and to seek proximity in order to aid surivial

Attachment behaviours are a result of natural selection and are hereditary (genetically inherited)

Carey and Gottesmann

Twin studies in OCD

Mz 87% Dz 47%

Role of nature in psych disorders

Who first suggested nurture stance

John Locke

Plomin

Suggested active and passive gene environment interaction

Passive- parents contribute to child’s development by passing on their genes and through creating an environment for the genetic predisposition to develop

Active- inherited traits (nature) lead people to make choices about nature- choose/create an environment best suited to nature (niche picking and niche building)

Scarr and McCartney

Constructivism has more impact as we age

We cannot niche pick as children as our parents choose (e.g. school/hobby)

Overtime constructivism has more impact (e.g. choose uni/subjects/job)

Maguire

London taxi driver study

Significantly larger volume of grey matter in posterior hippocampus (area associated with spatial navigation) of taxi drivers compared to matched control group

Rigorous training of learning streets and routes and the experience of driving the taxi (nurture) influenced size of hippocampus (nature)

Watson and Rayner

Little Albert study (taught phobia of rats) - behaviour is caused by environment/conditioning

Env determinism

Freud

5 Psychosexual stages in childhood. In each stage there is a conflict which must be resolved. If unresolved it will lead to a fixation which will impact adult behaviour

Psychic determinism

Rogers and Maslow

Humanists

Suggests we have free will and self determinism

Individuals are in control of behaviour and trying to achieve personal growth

Skinner

Behaviourist

Free will is an illusion

Libet et al

Motor regions in brain become active at least 2000milliseconds before person registers conscious awareness of a decision

Suggests that decision to move ,e.g. finger, pre-determined by brain

Supports biological determinism and idea that free will is an illusion

Rose

Created Rose’s levels of explanations

Lowest level- biological explanations= true reductionism (e.g. memory localised in certain areas of brain-hippocampus)

Middle level- psychological explanations- (e.g cog and behavioural- theoretical models- MSM, WMM)

Upper level- holistic, multi variable explanation (social and cultural explanations) -schema theory

Bartlett’s schema theory

Memory can be explained through cultural explanations as research suggests that socially learnt schemas affect what we remember and how we recall

Ozcanli

OCD is different in different cultures

Collectivist cultures- fear bad outcomes

Individualist cultures- fear bad self

Holistic, multi variable explanation which considers social and cultural factors

Maslow

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs- considers all contributors to human behaviour

Holistic

Craighead and Dunolp

Combination of drugs and CBT is more effective than either of them separately

Supports combination holistic treatment for psychological disorders over reductionist ones

Milgram

Research using nomothetic approach

Quantitative data, controlled, reliable and internally valid

Concluded that situational factors influence obedience in ALL individuals

Clive Wearing

Idiographic approach= case study

Useful in evidencing the existence of different long term memory stores

Usefulness of idiographic and case studies

Freud- alpha bias

• Girls and boys experience different concepts in their psychosexual stages:

  • Girls do not experience the same Oedipus complex as boys and therefore they do not identify with their mothers as strongly as boys do with their fathers

  • Impact on development - girls develop weaker superegos- are morally inferior to males

• Femininity is failed masculinity - penis envy

• Emphasises differences between males and females

• No evidence that women posses weaker superiors - e.g. only 5% of prison population women

Beta bias example

• Asch’s research into conformity involved a sample of ONLY male participants and thus demonstrated beta and androcentric bias

• Assumed that females would respond in the same way as males and therefore show the same conformity rate

• More recent replications by Eagly showed gender differences in conformity rates (older women more conformist)

• Asch’s research and theory demonstrates beta bias as it ignores gender differences through the assumption that females would behave in the same way

Rosenthal

Male experimenters are more pleasant towards female participants than male participants and in the same research males performed less well on the tasks involved

Research may be finding differences between genders that do not actually exist - result of researcher

What do feminists argue?

Lab experiments disadvantage women because of their controlled nature and research had found that although women and men displayed different leadership styles in lab based research, in real settings they were judged more similarly

Suggests Gender difference is not real but due to flawed methodology - demonstrates impact of bias on validity of research

Gilligan

Redid Kohlberg’s moral development research on women and found differences in moral stages between men and women

Women tend to have ethics of care whilst men ethics of justice

Importance of feminist stance - Gilligan showed women are not morally inferior to men just morally different - breaking stereotypes

Ainsworth

• Example of ethnocentric research

• Designed in America to assess attachment types- assuming the strange situation has same meaning for infants from other cultures

• BUT cultural differences found

• In Germany children demonstrated a higher level of avoidant behaviour- may be due to methodology used as children in Germany encouraged to be independent- respond differently to the strange situation

• Tahasaki - strange situation does not work in Japan as children are rarely separated from mothers - become distressed and appear resistant

• Culture bias challenges the validity of the findings and the universality of the research and its methodology in explaining and understanding attachment

Japanese syndrome for fear of upsetting others

Taijin kyofusho

What percentage of research in journal of psychological science was conducted in western cultures?

94%

What percentage of research in journal of Psychological Science conducted in US

58%

Smith and Bond

Found that 67% of participants in psychological research were American psychology undergraduates

Cochrane

Diagnosis of schizophrenia is 7x higher in the UK for people with African-Caribbean descent despite a 1% prevalence in Africa and the Caribbean just like in the UK

Suggests white psychologists are misinterpreting behaviour as symptoms through not taking social norms into account

Ethical implications of theory- Bowlby

• theory of attachment and monotropy suggests that children form one specific attachment bond and this is usually with the mother

• Attachment must be formed within a critical period

• Bowlby also suggested that this can form an IWM for future relationships

Implications on wider society - mothers feel guilty as a result of wanting to return to work and don’t feel they can return to work. Stigma for stay at home dads

Implication of economy- mothers not returning to work as they are told this will negatively impact children

Implications on moral attitudes towards mothers - could be used to coerce mothers to stay at home- perhaps by those seeking to justify a patriarchal conservative society

Social sensitivity- Bowlby

Discrimination towards PCG fathers

Stigma towards mothers who return to work and place their children in childcare

who suggested the 4 things the researcher must consider to ensure research is not socially sensitive

Sieber and Stanley

Sieber and Stanley

1 The research question- must consider carefully. Asking questions like ‘are there racial differences in IQ?’ Or ‘ is intelligence inherited?’ May be damaging to members of a particular group

2 The methodology used - researcher need to consider the treatment of the ps and their right to confidentiality and anonymity, e.g. if someone admits to committing a crime or having unprotected sex if they are HIV positive should researcher maintain confidentiality?

3 The institutional context- researcher should be mindful of how the data is going to be used and consider who is funding the research- if funded by a private organisation/institution: why are they funding the research and how do they intend to use the findings?

4 Interpretation and application of findings - researcher need to consider bow findings may be interpreted and applied in real world

4 stages applied to research

    1    Research question - any research linking intelligence to genetic factors can be seen as socially sensitive (e.g. Cyril Burt)

    2    . methodology- For example, Cyril Burt used studies of identical twins to support his view that intelligence is largely genetic. there has been huge controversy regarding whether Burt had falsified his research data.

    3    Institutional context- Burt worked for university of Liverpool and London county council- should have been aware about how they intended to use his findings

    4    Interpretation and application of findings- His views greatly influenced the Hadow Report (1926) which led to the creation of the 11+ which was used from 1944-1976. This meant that generations of children were affected by the 11+ exam.

Raine

• Raine et al’s research uses brain scans of violent criminals to examine their level of impulse control

• Raine found that there was damage to most areas of their brains, focussed around the frontal lobe which specialises in impulse control

• This research could be seen as socially sensitive because findings may be interpreted in a way that suggests that children should have brain scans to identify a predisposition for offending behaviour

• Children, their parents and general society may feel uneasy as to what to do with the knowledge that a child or children have a predisposition to violent, criminal behaviour

• This could lead to support for genetic engineering to avoid criminal genes being transmitted which is highly socially sensitive

• It could also have sensitive legal implications as the theory supports a determinist view in that the individual is not seen as culpable in a criminal act and violent crimes could thus not lead to convictions

Bowlby’s maternal deprivation hypothesis- negative implications

Bowlby’s maternal deprivation hypothesis - primary caregiver is usually mother

Causes or increases level of discrimination towards fathers who are primary caregivers or single parents and cause them to feel anxiety and concern about their ability to form attachments

Could enhance stigma around working mothers who return to work and place children in childcare

Milgram - negative implications

Milgram’s findings from his research into obedience could be used by malevolent authority to ensure obedience (e.g. prestigious location, wearing uniform) or could be used to justify awful crimes by malevolent authority (I.e. was just following orders)

Field- positive implications

Field- research into the role of the father in attachment

Contributed to the relatively recent introduction of paternity leave for fathers and the introduction of father skin on skin contact with their babies shortly after birth

Challenge stereotypes and change policy