issues and debates in psychology

gender and culture in psychology: gender bias

universality and what threatens and limits it 

universality: any underlying characteristic of humans that is capable of being applied to all, despite differences of experience and upbringing. gender bias and culture bias (any bias) threaten and undermine this concept in psychology, as bias means theories will lean towards a subjective view that doesnt necessarily reflect the objective reality due to research bias.

gender bias

alpha bias

psychological research that exaggerates differences (typically fixed and inevitable) is alpha biased.

gender bias

beta bias

gender bias

androcentrism

gender bias

evaluation: strengths

gender bias

evaluation: limitations

gender and culture in psychology

culture bias

henrich et al 2010 reviwes studies in leading psychology journals, found 68% of p’s came from US and 96% from industrialised nations. another review doing 80% p’s were psychology undergraduates (arnett 2008).

this suggests our understanding and ‘facts’ on human behaviour has strong cultural bias; most of which comes from Westernised Educated people from Industrialised Rich Democracies (WEIRD). if they set the norm, behaviour form non-westernised, less educated, agricultural and poorer countries is inevitably seen as abnormal, inferior, or unusual.

cukture bias

ethnocentrism

belief in superiority of one’s own cultural group (judging other cultures by the standards and values of own culture, extremities may lead to prejudice and discrimination).

mary ainsworth and sylvie bell 1970 strange situation. is criticised for only reflecting western norms, suggesting ideal attachment type was secure, characterised by baird showing moderate amounts of distress during seperation. this misinterpreted child rearing practices of other culture that deviate from american norms (japanese infants more likely to be classed as insecure as they show considerable distress during seperation (takahashi 1986)).

lefley and pedersen (1986) argues western ideas about what it means to be mentally healthy aren’t necessarily shared by the rest of the world.

culture bias

cultural relativism

berry (1969) distinguished etic (looks at behaviour outside a given culture and describes findings as universal) and emic (functions from inside a culture and identifies behaviour that are specific to that culture) approaches.

berry argues psychology has often been guilty of imposed etic - arguing theories are universal when they came about through emic research inside a single culture. researchers should be mindful of their cultural relativism: the things they discover may only make sense from the perspective of the culture within which they were discovered - this can be used to avoid cultural bias.

strange situation is example of imposed etic (studied behaviour in one culture and assumed their ideal attachment type could be applied universally)

culture bias

evaluation: strengths

emergence of cultural psychology (study of how people shape and are shaped by cultural experience) incorporates other disciplines like anthropology, sociology and political science. cultural psychologists strive to avoid ethnocentric assumptions using emic approaches along local researchers using culturally based techniques. tend to focus on small humber of cultures. this suggested modern psychologists are mindful of culture bias dangers and are actively taking steps to avoid it (cohen 2017)

culture bias

evaluation: limitations

most influential psychological studies are culturally biased. asch + milgram studies were conducted exclusively with US (mostly white, middle class) p’s. replications in different countries produced different results: collectivist cultures found significantly higher conformity rates than original US (individualist) study, suggests findings can only be applied to individualist cultures (for social influence topics (smith and bond 1993)).

counterpoint: due to increased media globalisation it’s argued the individualist-collectivist distinction no longer applies. takano and osaka (1999) found 14/15 studies compared US and Japan found no evidence of either, describing the distinction as lazy and simplistic, suggesting culture bias may be less of an issue in recent psychological research.

culture bias has lead to prejudice and ethnic stereotyping. the first IQ in WW1 test lead to eugenic social policies in the US as most questions were ethnocentric (names of US presidents) resulting in europeans and africans getting lower scores. this wasn’t seen as the tests inadequacy but used to inform racist discover about the genetic inferiority of particular cultural and ethnic groups ‘mentally-unfit’ ‘feeble-minded’ in comparison to the white majority and as a result were denied educational and professional opportunities (gould 1981), illustrating effect of culture bais to justify prejudice and discrimination towards other cultural and ethnic groups.

relativism vs universality: relativism can challenge individualist thinking but some concepts have universality and this shouldn’t be undermined

free will v determinism

is our behaviour a matter of fee will or are we the product of internal and external influences that determine who we are and what we do?

free will

humans are essentially self determining and free to choose their own thoughts and actions. belief in free will doesn’t deny that there’s biological and environmental forces that exert some influence on behaviour but implied we can reject these forces if we wish because we are in control of our thoughts/behaviour (humanistic approach).

determinism

proposes free will has no place in explaining behaviour, because we have no choice in our thoughts and actions.

-hard determinism: suggests all human behaviour and thought has a cause and dictated by internal or external forces of which we have no control over, therefore free will is impossible.

-soft determinism: all human behaviour has determining factors but with some room for choice (eg the cognitive approach) - whilst it might be the job of the scientist to explain what determines behaviour, it doesnt detract from the freedom that we have to make rational conscious choices in everyday situations.

types of determinism

biological determinism (hard determinism): all behaviour is innate and determined by genes, brain physiology and biochemistry. physiological and neurological processes in the body influence behaviour in certain situations (arent under our conscious control), eg the influence of auomatic nervous system. emphasises role of biological determinism in behaviour

environmental determinism: skinner described free will as an ‘illusion’ and argued all behaviour is the result and sum total of all past conditioning and reinforcement that influences us. our behaviour is shaped by environmental events and agents of socialising (parents and teachers etc)

psychic determinism: freud believed free will was an ‘illusion’ but emphasises the influence of biological drives and instincts. he saw behaviour as determined by unconscious conflicts, repressed in childhood. no believed no such accidents only parapraxes.

the scientific emphasis on causal explanations

a basic principle of science is that every event in the universe has a cause and that cause can be explained using general laws (hard determinism).

free will and determinism debate

evaluation: strengths

free will has practical value: thinking we exercise free choice can improve our mental health; rebecca roberts et al 2000 looked at adolescents who had strong belief in fatalism: that their lives were decided by events out of their control. found these adolescents were at significantly greater risk of developing depression: people with external locus of control are less likely to be optimistic. suggests even if we don’t have free will, the fact that we believe it may have a positive impact on mind and behaviour.

the position of the legal system on responsibility supports free will: hard determinism stance is that individual choice is not the cause of behaviour but offenders in a court of law are held accountable for their actions. so in the real world, determinist arguments don’t work.

brain scan evidence supports determinism and not free will: libet et al 1983 instructed p’s to choose a random moment to flick their wrists while he measured brain activity and say when they felt the conscious will to move. found unconscious brain activity leading up to the conscious decision move came around half a second before p consciously felt they decided to move. means even our most basic experiences of free will are determined by our brain even before we are aware of them.

counterpoint: findings showing the brain is involved in decision making - just as we’d expect. because the action comes before the conscious awareness of the decision to act, doesn’t mean there was no decision to act - just that the decision to act took time to reach consciousness, suggests this evidence isn’t an appropriate challenge of free will.

determinist approach helped establish psychology as a science and hard determinism (biological and behaviourist approach) has produced many effective real world applications, including therapies and behavioural interventions, although free will has intuitive appeal - most see themselves as making own choices not pushed by uncontrollable forces. can also help liberate people who come from crime or mental illness backgrounds.

free will and determinism debate

evaluation: limitations

the nature nurture debate

interactionist approach

whether our behaviour is more influenced by nature (inherited biological factors) or nurture (the environment and experiences). all characteristics arise from a combination of both so debate about which is at work.

e.g. bowlby (1958) claimed attachment is determined completely by warmth and continuity of parental love (environmental influence) where kagan (1984) proposed baby’s innate personality (temperament) affects the nature of an attachment relationships; environment and heredity interact.

for this reason, psychologists are likely to ask what the relative contribution of each influence is so the debate is about discussing how nature and nurture interact

the diathesis-stress

meehl (1960)

suggests behaviour is caused by a biological or environmental vulnerability (diathesis), which is only expressed when coupled with a biological or environmental trigger (stressor)

diathesis (a predisposition of vulnerability) + stressor (environmental factors; experience or circumstance) = development of psychological disorder (stronger diathesis means less of a stressor is required to bring about change)

epigenetics

change in our genetic activity without changing the genes themselves caused by interaction with the environment (eg smoking) which leave marks on our DNA that can switch genes on and off (why smoking has long term effects even after you stop smoking as they change the way the gene will be expressed)

epigenetics changes can influence the genetic codes of our children, and their children, and therefore influence a third element into the nature-nurture debate (the life experience of previous generations)

nature

inherited influences/heredity. descartes (1596-1660) argued all human characteristics are innate. psychological characteristics like intelligence or personality are determined by biological factors, just as physical characteristics like eye color and height.

heritability coefficient from 0-1 tells us how likely a characteristic is genetically inherited (eg intelligence heritability is 0.5 (plomin 1994 - tested against multiple varying populations))

nurture

influence of experience and the environment. locke (1632-1704) argues ‘the mind is a blank slate at birth’, which is then shaped by the environment. this view later shaped the behviourist approach. lerner (1986) identified different levels of the environment, including prenatal environment (eg how smoking etc affect an environment). more generally social and cultural contexts influence (postnatally).

the nature-nurture debate

evaluation: strengths

-use of adoption studies separate the competing influences of nature and nature. adoptive children found to be more similar to their adoptive parents suggests the environment is the bigger influence, where for the opposite, genetic factors are presumed to dominate. a meta analysis (rhee and waldman 2002) found genetic indelible accounted for 41% of aggression variance. shows research can seperate nature and nurture.

susser and lin (1992) found women who became pregnant during the WW2 famine had low birth weight babies, who were 2x more likely to develop schizophrenia compared to typical population rates supporting view that life experience of previous generations leave epigenetic markers that inference health of offspring.

real world application: OCD is a highly heritable mental disorder- nestadt et al 2010 put heritability rate as .76. this can inform genetic counselling (high heritability doesn’t mean development is inevitable so people with genetic background can receive advice about prevention. shows debate isn’t just theoretical.

the nature-nurture debate

evaluation: limitations

counterpoint of adoption studies: may be misguided as nature and nurture aren’t entities that can be simply pulled apart. plomin 1994 says people create they’re own nurture by actively selecting environment that are appropriate for the nature. a naturally aggressive child is likely to feel more comfortable with children who show similar behaviours. their chosen companions further influence their development: niche picking. this means nature vs nurture makes no sense

(implications of the debate) nativists (nature believers) suggest anatomy is destiny with little environmental input. this extreme determinist stance can lead to controversy such as linking ethnicity, genetics and intelligence to the application of eugenic policies —

contrastly, empiricists (nurture) suggest any behaviour can be change by altering environmental conditions (behaviour shaping) is used in therapy where desirable behaviours are reinforced and undesirable behaviours are punished.

holism and reductionism debate

concerned with the levels at which its appropriate to study human behaviour. there is no continuum between the two, and so is more about a preference for better understandings.

holism

-looks at a system as a whole and sees any attempt to subdivide behaviour or experience into smaller units as inappropriate (sees the whole as greater than the sum of its parts). humanistic psychology focuses on experience, which cant be broken into parts.

-knowing about the parts (eg characteristics someone may have) doesnt help to understand the essence of that person.

reductionism

seeks to analyse behaviour by breaking it down into its constituent parts. based on the scientific principle of parsimony: all phenomona should be explained using the simplest principles. levels of explaining

biological reductionism

environmental (stimulus-response) reductionism

holism and reductionism

evaluation: strengths

holism and reductionism

evaluation: limitations

idiographic and nomothetic approaches

the idiographic approach to psychological investigation

the nomothetic approach to psychological investigation

objective vs subjective

idiographic and nomothetic approaches

evaluation: strengths

idiographic and nomothetic approaches

evaluation: limitations

ethical implications of research studies and theories