Issues And Debates - Terms

Alpha Bias

A tendency to exaggerate the differences between men and women. The consequence is that theories devalue one gender in comparison to another.

Androncentrism

Centered or focused on men, often to the neglect or exclusion of women.

Beta Bias

A tendency to ignore or minimise differences between men and women. To assume that insights derived from studies of men will apply equally to women.

Gender Bias

The differential treatment or representation of men and women based on stereotypes rather than real differences.

Universality

The aim to develop theories that apply to all people, which may include real differences.

Cultural Bias

The tendency to judge all people in terms of your own cultural assumptions. This distorts or biases your judgement.

Cultural Relativism

The view that behaviour cannot be judged properly unless it is viewed in the context of the culture in which it originates.

Culture

The rules, customs, morals and ways of interacting that bind together members of a society or some other collection of people.

Ethnocentrism

Seeing things from the point of view of ourselves and our social group. Evaluating other groups of people using the standards and customs of one's own culture.

Determinism

Behaviour is controlled by external or internal factors acting upon the individual.

Free Will

Each individual has the power to make choices about their behaviour.

Hard Determinism

The view that all behaviour can be predicted and there is no free will.

Soft Determinism

A version of determinism that allows for some element of free will.

Biological Determinism

The view that all behaviour is determined by biological factors such as genes.

Environmental Determinism

The view that all behaviour is determined by previous experiences - through operant and classical conditioning.

Psychic Determinism

Freud's psychoanalytic theory of personality suggests that adult behaviour is determined by a mix of innate drives and early experiences i.e. both internal and external forces.

Scientific Determinism

Based on the belief that all events have a cause.

Environment

Everything that is outside our body, which includes people, events and the physical world.

Heredity

The process by which traits are passed from parents to their offspring, usually referring to genetic inheritance.

Interactionist Approach

With reference to the nature-nurture debate, the view that the processes of nature and nurture work together rather than in opposition.

Nature

Behaviour is seen to be a product of innate factors.

Nature-Nurture Debate

The argument as to whether a person's development is mainly due to their genes or to environmental influences.

Nurture

Behaviour is a product of environmental influences.

Holism

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

Reductionism

Breaks behaviour down to simple components, as it’s best understood in the simplest terms.

Idiographic Approach

Focuses on individuals and emphasises uniqueness, using qualitative methods in research.

Nomothetic Approach

Formulates general laws of behaviour based on the study of large groups and quantitative techniques.

Socially Sensitive Research

Research that can have direct social consequences for the participants in the research or the group that they represent.