Issues and debates

What is universality?

Conclusions drawn can be applied to everyone

What is alpha bias?

Exaggerates differences between men and women often to devalue women

What is beta bias?

Minimising differences between men and women

Example of alpha bias

Freuds psychosexual stages

Example of beta bias?

Fight or flight → tend and befriend for women

Proof for androcentrism?

List of 100 influential psychologists only had 6 women

Brescoll and Uhlmann suggested PMS is pathologised whereas mens anger is considered justified

Biological bias examples

Maccoby and Jacklin found women have superior verbal and men have better spatial. Joel et al found this incorrect, but it had already been popularised by then.

Sexism in research?

Murphey et al found lecturers in psychology are more likely to be men

Nicolsen found men thought women are too irrational for research

Publishing issues

Formanowicz found research on bias is less likely to be published by influential journals

Tavris

It becomes normal for women to feel abnormal

WEIRD acronym by Henrich

Westernised, educated people from industrialised rich democracies

Ethnocentrism

Belief in the superiority in ones own cultural group

Example of ethnocentrism

Ainsworth’s strange situation

Etic

Looks at behaviour outside a given culture and attempts to describe those behaviours as universal

Emic

Looks at behaviour within inside a culture and identifies behaviours unique to that culture

Imposed etic

Assuming emic research can be applied universally

Ethnocentric intelligence testing

Wober 1974 found intelligence is catagorised as careful and deliberate thought

Strength of cultural relativism and counterpoint

Can identify for who studies can apply to eg. Asch and Milgram and individualist cultures

Media globalisation - Takano and Osaka found no evidence of collectivism or individualism between USA and Japan

Strength of research into cultural bias

Emergence of cultural psychology

What is the interactionist approach?

Idea that nature and nurture interact for all behaviours

What is the diathesis stress model?

Behaviour is caused by a biological/environmental vulnerability which is expressed when coupled with a biological/enironmental trigger

Epigentics

Change in genetic activity without changing genes due to environmental factors

Strength of research into nature nurture debate

Adoption studies - meta analysis by Rhee et al found genetic influence accounted for 41% of the variance in agression

Real world application eg. Nestadt

Limitation of research into nature nurture debate

Plomin suggests ‘niche picking’ people chose spaces that match their nature, so define their own environment - not seperate entities

Ethical issues with research

Implications for the research process

Implications of the research question

Dealing with participants

Way findings are used

Study on implication of research question

Sieber and Stanley suggested phrasing matters

Kitzinger and Coyle found research qs into homosexual relationships had heterosexual bias

Strength for socially sensitive research

Benefits for people studies eg. Kinsey report found homosexual behaviour is natural

Can be used in the real world

Limitations for socially sensitive research

Erroneous findings can have huge implications eg. 11+

Requires researchers to be reflexive

Who first suggested soft determinism?

William James

Strengths of free will

Roberts et al found high external LOC led to higher probability of depression

Accountability and the law

Limitations of free will and counterpoint

Libet et al found unconcious choice made before physical choice

Not appropriate as seperating brain from concious not fully sensible

Strengths of determinism?

Scientific, research support

Levels of explaination in psychology?

Socio cultural level

Psychological level

Physical level

Behavioural level

Physiological level

Neurochemical level

Strength of holism?

Doesn’t oversimplify

Limitation of holism?

Lack of practical value

Not scientific

Limitation of brain scans

Explanatory gap - Levine et al

Thinking of blue and red shows up the same, but experience is different

What is this idiographic approach?

Looks at individual cases to understand behaviour

What is the nomothetic approach

Developing general laws for all people

Difference between holism and idiographic approach

Idiographic doesn’t look at person as a whole

Strength of nomothetic approach

Quantative

Objective

Which approaches are nomothetic

Behaviourist & SLT

Biological

Strength of idiographic

More specific, can have specific applications

Contributes to nomothetic approach

Doesn’t lose the person

Which approaches are idiographic

Humanistic

Psychodynamic

Which approaches are fatalistic based on development

Psychodynamic

Biological

Cognitive

How is the psychodynamic approach used

Psychotherapy

How is the cogntiive approach used

CBT

How is the biological approach used

Drug therapy

How is SLT used

dysfunctional learning from role models

How is the humanistic approach used

Counselling

How is the behaviourist approach used

Systematic desensitisation