Issues and debates

beta bias - gender

minimises gender differences assumes there are no differences

• study- flight/fight response mainly only done with men bc of dif hormones but they assume the results will be universal → female behaviour undiscovered

• Kohlberg moral reasoning only done with men findings were generalised to represent men and women

alpha biases - gender

assumes/exaggerates a difference between gender differences

• study- Freud exaggerated the difference between men and women, that femininity was failed masculinity

• male promiscuity is genetically determined whereas female promiscuity goes against there nature, as they evolutionary have to be more picky, whereas men need to produce as much offspring as possible

androcentrism

as a result of beta-bias all behaviour is compared to the male standard

• study- flight/fight response only men as women’s hormones would have made the study more difficult → Shelley + Taylor -tend and befriend

universality

The aim to develop theories that apply to all people, describes any underlying human behaviour which can be applied to all individuals regardless of differences

• EVAL- bias, lack of validity and issues with reliability

cultural bias

the tendency to judge all culture and individuals in terms of your own cultural assumption

cultural relativism

the view that culture norms and values are culture specific and no one culture is superior to another

• study- Milgram’s study into obedience used 40 male american ppts, → western view and then using spanish students and Australian

ethnocentrism

using your own ethnic/cultural basis for judgments about other groups - cultural superiority

environmental determinism

behaviour is determined by surroundings, through cc, oc, slt

biological determinism

genes, neurophysiology, neurochemistry influences human behaviour

• study- forensic → Christiansen et al…

Psychic determinism

Adult behaviour is determined by innate drives and early experience

• Freud’s psychosexual stages

hard determinism

All behaviour can be predicted and the external and internal forces our beyond our control, no free will

• study- biological approach

soft determinism

some element of free will

free will

• humanistic approach we have self determinism, self responsibility only way to allow for personal growth and self-actualisation

  → moral responsibility - an ind is in charge of their own actions

causal explanations

science is heavily deterministic in its search for causal relationships, wether x causes y or the independent variable causes changes in the dependent variable

nature

importance of heredrity in determining behaviour (genes, neurochemistry, neurophysiology) the process where traits are passed from parents to children

nurture

importance of the environment in determining behaviour

• eg) social learning theory, behaviourism - cc, oc

interactionist approach

the view that nature and nurture work together, influence each other

Eval of the nature/nurture

-Diathesis stress model - environment + genes

-epigenetics

-nurture effects nature- Maguire et al taxi drivers ‘the knowledge’ effects the hippocampus volume

Holism

human behaviour should be viewed as a whole integrated experience

• Gestalt psychology adopts a holistic approach to perception - what we see only makes sense when we consider the whole image

reductionism

breaking more complex behaviour into simple components

eg) a reductionist approach to depression - a result of low levels of serotonin

levels of explanation

different ways of viewing the same phenomena in psychology eg) socio-cultural, psychological, neurochemical

different levels

high- cultural/social oh how social groups effect behaviour

medium- psychological explanations of behaviour

low- biological explanations - genes, hormones etc

biological reductionism

reducing behaviour to biology - genes, neurochem, neurophysiology

environmental (stimulus-response) reductionism

all behaviour can be explained in terms of simple stimulus response links - attachment, mother and baby as a stimulus

Idiographic

a method of investigating which focuses on individuals and emphasises their uniqueness

-subjective and rich human experience is the way of explaining behaviour

• humanistic approach looks at the whole person and seeing the world from that person’s perspective and their subjective experience not what someone else has observed of them

• Qualitative- studying humans in depth + quality + unstructured interviews, case studies and thematic analysis

Nomothetic

The approach which involves studying large number of people and then seek to make generalisations/theories/laws about their behaviour (also the goal of the scientific approach)

• nomothetic approach when explaining disorders such as OCD, through neurotransmitters and use biological therapies to treat eg anti-depressants

• Quantitative- research based on numbers

ethical implications

socially sensitive

any research that might have direct social consequences for the participants in the research

• Bowlby’s research into attachment

• FST