AQA Psychology A Level Issues and Debates

Universality

Any underlying characteristic of human beings that is capable of being applied to all

Gender Bias

When one gender is treated in a different way from another

Androcentrism

When 'normal' behaviour is judged according to a male standard and so anything which deviates from this is seen as 'abnormal'

PMS is often thought as a stereotype when in fact is a diagnosable disorder under the DSM-5

Alpha Bias

Psychological theory which suggest a difference between males and females e.g. Wilson's principle of survival efficacy

Beta Bias

Theories that ignore or minimise the differences between males and females e.g. Freud

Evaluation of Gender Bias

Implications of bias- misleading assumptions of female behaviour

Sexism within research- more likely to be published if highlighting differences between males and females

Reflexivity- psychologists now consider this when conducting research

Cultural Bias

The tendency to ignore the cultural differences and interpret information through the 'lens' of our own culture ie. in 1992, 64% of the worlds psychology researchers were American

Ethnocentrism

Judging other cultures by the standards and values of one's own cultures and in extreme cases the superiority of one e.g. Ainsworth's strange situation

Cultural Relativism

The idea that norms, values and morals can only be understood within a specific social and cultural context

Berry (1969)

Distinguished between etic and emic

Etic

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

Emic

Looks at behaviours within a certain culture an describes behaviour within that culture

Evaluation of Cultural Bias

Individualism and collectivism

Relativism vs universality

Unfamiliarity with research tradition

Free Will

The notion that human being can make choices that are not determined by biological or external forces

Determinism

The idea that behaviour is controlled by internal forces e.g. genetics or external forces e.g. conditioning

Hard determinism

Implies free will is not possible as our behaviour is always caused by events beyond our control, sometimes called fatalism

Soft determinism

First put forward by James (1890): All events have causes but we can also control our conscious choices in the absence of coercion

Biological determinism

The belief that behaviour is caused by biological influences we cannot control

Environmental determinism

The idea that behaviour is caused by features of our environment

Psychic determinism

The idea that behaviour is caused by internal conflicts we cannot control

Evaluation of determinism

Advantages: compatible with aims of science with the ideas of general laws

Applications in the development of therapies and medication e.g. antipsychotics for schizophrenia

Schizophrenia shows we do not have complete free will- who would choose?

Disadvantages: Inconsistent with our legal system

Unfalsifiable- impossible to prove wrong

Evaluation of free will

Advantages: we feel like we are in control of decisions giving it face validity

Internal LOC are more mentally healthy

Disadvantages: Libet (1985) found that simple decisions e.g. which hand to press a button with were decided before we were conscious of the task

At least some are determined

Roberts (2000)

Found people with an internal LOC were more mentally healthy ie. less likely to develop depression

Nature-nurture

Concerned with the extent to which aspects of behaviour are a product of inherited or acquired characteristics

Heredity

The genetic transmittion of mental and physical characteristics from one generation to the next

Heritability coefficient

On a scale of 0 to 1 (extent to which a characteristic is inherited)

Environment

Any influence on human behaviour that is non-genetic

For example friend, family

Interactionist approach

Nature and nurture are linked to such an extent it is not logical to separate them, instead study how they interact or influence each other

Belsky and Rovine (1987) nature creates nurture ie. innate temperament

Diathesis-stress model

Model of mental illness which emphasises the role of both nature and nurture e.g. Tienari found that adoptees were more likely to develop schizophrenia if their biological parents had it and they suffered some sort of trauma

Epigenetics

A change is genetics without a change in the genetic code

Dias and Ressler (2014) (mice)

Gave male lab mice electric shocks and released a small amount of a chemical with a distinctive smell

They found that the children and grandchildren who were not conditioned also showed fear of the smell

Evaluation of Nature-nurture

Implications of nature- people with low IQ sterilized in the

Implications of nurture- a behaviour shaping society where we can be controlled

Shared and Unshared- differences in siblings

Constructivism- people seek a nurture that fits their nature

Dunn and Plomin (1990)

Said that siblings may experience life events e.g. parents divorce differently due to factors such as age and temperament

Holism

The argument that it only makes sense to study indivisible system rather than in it's constitute parts

Reductionism

The belief that human behaviour is best explained by breaking it down into smaller constitute parts

Biological reductionism

A form of reductionism that attempts to explain social and psychological phenomena at a lower biological levels

Led to development and understanding of the effect of psychoactive drugs

Environmental reductionism

The attempt to explain all behaviour in terms of stimulus-response and links learned through experience

Levels of explanation

The idea there are different ways of viewing the same behaviour in psychology:

Psychological

Physical

Neurochemical

Reductionist Hierarchy

Sociology

Psychology

Biology

Chemistry

Physics

Evaluation of Holism

Advantages: Social behaviours often only emerge in a group context and so would not be understood using individual participants e.g. conformity and de-individuation

Disadvantages: Not rigorous scientific testing

E.g. Humanistic approach

Combination of different perspectives means that we are unsure which is the biggest contributing factor

Evaluation of Reductionism

Advantages: Forms a scientific basis

E.g. operationalisation of variables involves breaking them down (behavioural categories in Strange Situation)

Showed how complex learning could be reduced to simple stimulus-response

Disadvantages: Oversimplifying complex phenomena so loses validity

Does not include the context of a behaviour when looking at genes or neurochemistry

Idiographic approach

An approach that focuses more on an individual case as a means of understanding behaviour rather than creating general laws for behaviour

Nomothetic

An approach that attempts to study human behaviour through the development of genera principles and universal laws

Idiographic

Use qualitative data such as case studies, unstructured interviews and self report

Nomothetic

Uses experiments with a sample that represents the target population to make general laws about behaviour

Includes scientific criteria such as: hypothesis, statistical significance and reproducibility

Often uses the normal distribution curve

Psychodynamics and Humanistic

Give two examples of idiographic approaches in psychology:

Behaviourist, biological and cognitive

Give three examples of nomothetic approaches in psychology:

Evaluation of idiographic

Advantages: Deep, qualitative and global understanding of an individual

May complement nomothetic by creating hypothesis for future study

E.g. HM in studying memory

Disadvantages: Narrow and restricted

E.g. Freud's account of the oedipus complex

Meaningful generalisations cannot be made without proper examples

Tends to be less scientific

Evaluation of nomothetic

Advantages: Tends to be more scientific by using standardised procedures and providing statistical analysis both descriptive and inferential

E.g. IQ has enabled scientists to establish a 'normal' score

Disadvantages: Accused of 'loosing the whole person'

E.g. knowing the chance of schizophrenia in the general population is 1% tells us very little about what life is like as a sufferer

Participants treated as 'scores' not individual people with their own subjective arguments

Ethical implications

The impact psychological research has in terms of the rights of other people especially participants

This includes a societal level, influencing public policy and the way certain groups of people are regarded

Social sensitivity

Sieber and Stanley (1988):"studies in which there are potential consequence or implications, either directly for the participants in the research or for the class of individuals represented by the research

Implications

The wider effects of such research should be carefully considered as some studies appearing 'scientific' may give credibility to stereotypes ie. examining links between race and intelligence could lead to segregated schools

Public Policy

Is the research going to be used for the wrong purpose?

Findings may be adapted by a government for political ends

Validity of research

Some findings which appear as objective and value-free have turned out to be highly suspect and sometimes fraudulent e.g. Burt's research of IQ

Some modern social constructionists tackle social sensitivity

Ethical guidelines

Established to help protect all those involved in a study

Evaluation of Ethical implications

Benefits of socially sensitive research- underrepresented groups may promote greater sensitivity and understanding

Framing the question- homosexual relationships compared to heterosexual when they should not be

Who gains?- protects the general public, groups, participants, researchers and the quality of research as a whole