issues + debates 🤨

gender bias 🧒🏼👧🏽

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

alpha bias ⬆ (gender)

exaggerating the differences between men and women. often devalues one gender (usually females)

freud → viewed femininity as failed masculinity.

girls experience penis envy and develop a weaker superego because they don’t go through castration anxiety.

women are morally inferior = clearly androcentric and alpha biased.

beta bias ⬇ (gender)

minimises or ignores differences between men and women. occurs when research is based only on men but results are generalised to both sexes.

asch → all male sample, but findings applied to all humans

fight or flight → early research based on male animals. Taylor et al. found women may respond with “tend and befriend” — caring for offspring and seeking social support.

androcentrism

centred or focused on men. male behaviour is treated as the norm, and female behaviour is seen as abnormal, deficient, or a variation.

PMS being seen as irrational — but male anger is often medicalised as understandable.

universality

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

gender bias ao3

✅feminist psychology → helped reduce gender bias by promoting fairer research methods, like using diverse samples and real-life context

❌real-world consequences → can cause real harm, like misdiagnosing women or reinforcing sexist stereotypes in society.

❗reverse alpha bias → attempts to correct gender bias can sometimes go too far, creating new stereotypes by overemphasising female strengths.

✅ reflexivity → modern researchers are more aware of their own biases, which improves objectivity and leads to more balanced, valid research.

cultural bias

when psychological research ignores cultural differences and wrongly assumes western norms apply to everyone

ethnocentrism

judging other cultures by your own culture’s standards, seeing yours as “normal” or better

e.g. strange situation assumes american attachment behaviour is the standard.

leads to beta bias

linked to etic approach

cultural relativism

the idea that behaviour should only be understood in the context of its own culture.

📚 e.g. hearing voices is spiritual in some cultures but seen as schizophrenia in western psychiatry.

can lead to alpha bias

linked to emic approach

alpha bia (culture)

exaggerates cultural differences, may stereotype or pathologise a group.

📚 e.g. saying collectivist cultures are always less independent.

⚠ caused by cultural relativism or imposed etic

beta bias (culture)

ignores or minimise cultural differences, assumes behaviour is the same everywhere.

📚 e.g. using same attachment test globally = strange situation.

⚠ caused by ethnocentrism and etic approach

imposed etic

applying your own culture’s tools or norms to study others without adaptation.

📚 e.g. western IQ or depression tests used in non-western cultures.

⚖ can cause alpha or beta bias depending on interpretation

🌍 part of etic approach

emic approach

studies behaviour from inside a culture using culturally relevant tools.

📚 e.g. studying parenting in kenya using local customs, not western norms.

✅ avoids cultural bias

⚖ avoids alpha and beta bias

🌍 linked to cultural relativism

etic approach

studies behaviour across cultures with the same method to find universal laws.

📚 e.g. using the same IQ test globally without adapting it.

❌ risk of imposed etic

⚖ causes beta or alpha bias

🌍 linked to ethnocentrism

reducing cultural bias

Cross-cultural research → research across cultures

Representative sample → use representative samples

Reflective approach → researcher constantly reflecting on ones own bias when carrying out research

Immersion → researchers that are native to/familiar with culture investigating

Standards → do not assume universal standards across cultures

Sensitive → be sensitive to cultural norms when designing research

Emic → study single cultures to understand them

cultural bias ao3

✅ indigenous psychology → creates psychological theories based on the values and experiences of specific cultures, reducing Western cultural bias and improving validity 🌍

❌ consequences of cultural bias →leads to stereotypes and misdiagnosis, such as African Americans being overdiagnosed with schizophrenia due to cultural misunderstandings 💔

❌ WEIRD samples → psychology mostly uses samples from Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, Democratic (WEIRD) populations, which limits how well findings apply to other cultures globally 🌏

✅ culture & mental health diagnosis → considering cultural context in diagnosis prevents wrongly labeling normal cultural behaviours as disorders and improves treatment effectiveness 💊

free will

each individual has the power to make choices about their behaviour

AUTONOMY

humanistic approach

supports free will.

people have the power to choose and control their behaviour.

focus on self-actualisation — fulfilling potential.

emphasises personal responsibility and growth.

promotes positive mental health through choice.

moral responsibility

individual is in charge of their own actions

law states that children and the mentally ill do not have this responsibility but all other adults do

determinism

behaviour is determined by internal or external factors acting upon the individual

hard determinism

all behaviour is predicted and there is no free will

fatalism

soft determinism

version of determinism that allows for some element of free will

biological determinism

behaviour is caused by biological factors like genes, hormones, brain structures.

eg → schizophrenia linked to dopamine abnormalities or genetic vulnerability, MAOA gene linked to criminality

environmental determinism

behaviour caused by previous experiences through classical and operant conditioning. external forces, we have no control

eg → phobias learnt through conditioning (two step model) little albert and unlearnt through conditioning (systematic desensitisation)

psychic determinism

adult behaviour determined by innate drives and early experience

libido and psychosexual stages

unresolved conflicts lead to fixations

scientific causal explanations

scientific research based on idea that allows events have a cause

iv manipulated to have an effect on the dev (harlows monkeys)

through repeating research and doing statistical tests relationships can be establish

free will - determinism ao3

✅strength of free will – positive mental health people who believe in free will tend to have better psychological wellbeing. roberts teenagers with a strong belief in fatalism were more likely to be depressed.

❌Neuroscience evidence → Libet (1985) and Chun Siong Soon (2008): brain activity is detected before a person reports consciously deciding to act. suggests biological determinism — actions may be caused before conscious awareness.

✅strength of determinism – scientific value determinism allows for cause-and-effect research, which is key to psychology as a science. leads to useful treatments (e.g. SSRIs for depression based on biological determinism).

❌ weakness of determinism – removes responsibility. If all behaviour is determined, it challenges the legal and moral idea of personal responsibility. may justify harmful actions (“It wasn’t my fault, I was born this way”).

nature

behaviour is a product of innate factors (biological or genetic)

heredity

process by which traits are passed from parents to their offspring

nature examples

Bowlby’s monotropic theory of attachment (evolutionary explanation) → babies are born with an innate drive to attach to a primary caregiver (usually the mother) because it increases survival.

Schizophrenia and genetic explanations → Twin studies (e.g. Gottesman, 1991) show that monozygotic twins have a 48% concordance rate for schizophrenia — showing a genetic predisposition.

nurture

behaviour is a product of environmental factors

nurture examples

Learning theory of attachment → suggests babies learn to attach through classical conditioning (associating food with caregiver) and operant conditioning (caregiver provides rewards, like food or comfort).

Bandura’s Bobo Doll experiment (SLT) → Children observed an adult behaving aggressively towards a doll. those who saw aggression more likely to imitate it, especially if the adult was rewarded (vicarious reinforcement)

interactionist approach

nature and nurture interact, and it’s overly simplistic to separate them.

behaviour is often the result of a combination of both.

interactionist examples

Diathesis-Stress Model → suggests that mental disorders like depression or schizophrenia result from a biological vulnerability (diathesis) that is triggered by a stressful environment.

E.g. a person may inherit a gene for schizophrenia (nature), but only develop the disorder after stressors like trauma or drug abuse (nurture).

Epigenetics → refers to how environmental factors can activate or silence genes.

E.g. poor diet, trauma, or pollution may “switch on” genetic vulnerabilities.

nature - nurture ao3

✅ interactionist approach → most psychologists now accept that nature and nurture interact. diathesis-stress model: e.g. a genetic vulnerability (nature) + stressful environment (nurture) → mental illness like schizophrenia.

✅ support for Nature – twin & adoption studies → studies show higher concordance rates for MZ twins (who share 100% of genes) than DZ twins. e.g. Nestadt et al (2010): OCD more common among people with first-degree relatives who have it. suggests a genetic/nature basis, though environment still plays a role.

support for nurture – behaviourist approach → behaviourists argue all behaviour is learned through conditioning. classical conditioning (Pavlov) and operant conditioning (Skinner) show how environment shapes behaviour. example: Little Albert learned to fear white rats via association.

reductionism

breaks complex phenomena into simpler components, best understood in simpler terms

describe levels of explanation

explanations begin at highest level and progressively look at component elements

biological reductionism

reducing behaviours to neurotransmitters, genes and hormones

environmental reductionism

reducing behaviour to a simple relationship between behaviour and the events in the environment

experimental reductionism

reducing complex behaviours to isolated and operationalised variables to determine causal relationships

holism

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

holism examples

humanistic

cognitive (models)

3 levels of explanation

highest- cultural and social explanations for behaviour

middle- psychological

lowest- biological

holism reductionism ao3

❌only focusing on lower levels of explanation- can lead to ignoring other complex factors which may influence behaviour

✅biological reductionism- drug therapy, reduction in institutionalisation, more humane as does not blame patient

❌enviro reductionism- non human animals, behaviour explained simply, humans more complex, can’t be generalised

idiographic

study of individuals

provides unique insights about human behaviour

uses qualitative methods- for example case studies, structured/unstructured interview and thematic analysi

idiographic examples

psychodynamic- freud’s use of case studies

humanistic approach

nomothetic

involves study of large groups of people

generalisations/develop laws /theories about behaviour

quantitative- measures of central tendency, dispersion, graphs and statistical analysis

normative research (eg IQ) requires groups of thousands of pps

nomothetic examples

biological - brain work

behavioural - all animal

cognitive - memory processes

idio nomo ao3

✅focus on the individual- too much emphasis on measurements and scientists had lost sight of what it means to be human, allport argued that only by knowing a person we can predict their behaviour

❌weak scientific basis - especially humanistic psychology- not sufficiently evidence. findings are essentially meaningless. but there are some idiographic approaches that are evidence based (case studies or qualitative research)

✅ scientific and efficient – uses large samples and quantitative data. quick, easy to analyse ideal for identifying general laws of behaviour.

❌ lacks personal meaning – focus on numbers and general laws can overlook individual experiences. REDUCTIONIST

ethical implications

concern the way that research impacts those who take part in research

ethical implications example

milgrams study of obedience

braumind criticised milgram for severe distress he caused to his pps

insufficient respect for pps

Personalities may have altered, making people more likely to commit the action again in real life

socially sensitive research

studies which have potential social consequences or implications, either directly for the pps in research or the class of individuals represented by the research

example of SSR

bowlby maternal deprivation hypothesis - mothers encouraged to stay home and look after children rather than going to work

sieber and stanley

Context

Resreach question

Institutional context

Methodology

general effects of ethical implications

pps

economy

political effects eg- legislation

bias against cultural groups

economic implications for further research and funding

ethical ao3

❌ some research → misused and caused harm. bowlby maternal deprivation. mums blamed

✅ AO3 Point 2: Positive social change. just avoid ssr but socially sensitive research can benefit society. research on same-sex parenting helped fight stigma and influenced legal rights.

Avoiding these topics would ignore important social issues.

✅ethical guidelines like the BPS Code. studies reviewed by ethics committees to reduce harm and misuse. shows we can research sensitive topics responsibly.