Psychology - Chapter 1: Issues and debates

Alpha bias

Assumptions which exaggerates the sex differences between the two genders

Beta bias

Assumptions which minimizes or ignores sex differences

Androcentrism

A consequence of Beta Bias, which viewpoints of the society are mostly male-centered, with the standard being male behaviors.

Free will

Capability to choose between different possible courses of action

Determinism

Behavior is fully controlled by the external environment

Hard determinism

Believes all human behaviors have causes, and these causes are fully determined by the environment in which we cannot control

Biological determinism

Behavior is controlled by genetics, which can be inherited from parents

Environmental determinism

Behavior is caused by forces outside the individual, the environment around you but not directly to you

Psychic determinism

Human behavior is a result of childhood experiences and inmate drives, but has to be directed towards the individual

Soft determinism

Assumes that behavior is still controlled by the external factors, but the individual still have free will to an extent

Nature

Behavior is a product of innate factors (genes, biological, evolutionary aspects)

Nurture

Behavior is a product of external environment

Heritability coefficient

Assess the amount of passing on of physical/mental characteristics genetically

Diathesis-stress model

A model emphasizing the interaction of nature and nurture.

Culture bias

The ‘norm’ for a particular behavior is judged only from the standard-point of 1 particular culture

Ethnocentrism

A type of cultural bias - a belief in superiority of one’s own cultural group

Cultural relativism

No universal standards to measure culture by → All cultures values and beliefs must be understood relatively to their cultural context

Idiographic

Attempts to describe the nature of the individual, describing the richness of human experiences and gain insight into the person’s unique way of viewing the world

Nomothetic

Producing general laws of human behaviors which can therefore be applied and universalized

Reductionism

Breaks complex phenomena into simpler contents

Levels of explanation in psychology

Different ways to view a phenomena in psychology → Some are more reductionist that others

Biological reductionism

Behaviors at some level can be explained and broken down into biological explanations (neurophysiological, neurochemical, evolutionary and genetic influences)

Environmental reductionism

Reducing behaviors down into the stimulus response link → Look at cause and consequences, without a link in between

Holism

Perceiving the whole experience rather than the individual features or relations between them.