Psychology - Issues and Debates

Universality

Any underlying characteristic of human beings that is capable of being applied to all, despite differences of experiences and upbringing. Gender and culture bias threaten the universality of findings

Gender bias

Free will

The notion humans can make choices and their behaviour/thoughts are not determined by biological or external forces

Determinism

The view that an individual’s behaviour is shaped or controlled by internal or external forces rather than an individual’s will to do something

Hard determinism

The view that all behaviour is caused by something, so free will is an illusion

Soft determinism

The view that all behaviour may be predictable but there is also room for personal choice from a limited range of possibilities (restricted free will)

Biological determinism

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

Environmental determinism

The belief that behaviour is caused by features of the environment that we cannot control

Psychic determinism

The belief that behaviour is caused by unconscious psychodynamic conflicts that we cannot control

The nature-nurture debate

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

Heredity

The genetic transmission of both mental and physical characteristics from one generation to another

Environment

Any influence on human behaviour that is non-genetic. This may range from prenatal influences in the womb through historical and cultural influences at a societal level

Nature

Inherited influences

Nurture

Influence of experience and environment

Epigenetics

A change in our genetic activity without changing the genes. It’s caused by interaction with the environment

Idiographic approach

An approach to research that focuses more on the individual case as a means to understanding behaviour

Nomothetic approach

The nomothetic approach aims to study human behaviour through the development of general principles and univeraal laws

Ethical implications

The consequences of any research in terms of the effects on individual participants on or on the way in which certain groups of people are subsequently regarded

Social sensitivity

Sieber and Stanley define it as research in which there are potential consequences or implications, either directly for the participants in the research or for the class of individuals represented by the research

Asch - Example of ethnocentrism and gender bias

* A test to see if people would conform to the majority
* Only American men used

Milgram - Example of ethnocentrism and the nature/nurture debate

* Only used Americans
* Wanted to measure levels of obedience
* Determine if evil could be induced or natural

Berry et al - Etic and emic

* Etic = assumes that results from one culture can be taken as universal laws
* Emic = research is specific to one culture

Hare-Mustin and Marecek - Alpha and beta bias

* Alpha = Exaggerating the gender differences between genders
* Beta = Minimising the gender differences between genders

Cochrane and Sashidharan - Cross-cultural research -Schizophrenia diagnosis in the Uk

* African-Caribbean culture compared to the rest of the population
* African-Caribbean cultures were 7x more likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia
* From this, people could draw the conclusion that people of African-Caribbean origin may have a higher genetic predisposition towards it
* But by looking at the rates of schizophrenia in the Caribbean, they are no higher than in the UK
* So people could have a misconception about schizophrenia rates in African-Caribbean

Littlewood and Lipsedge - Cross culture research -Prescription medication

* African-Caribbean patients are more likely to be prescribed higher dosage medications
* Suggests interpretations of symptoms were stronger

Smith and Bond - Replication

Perfect replication of studies are impossible due to interpretation of data differences

Mead - Gender roles

* Studied 3 tribes in Papa New Guinea regarding gender roles
* For accurate generalisability all tribes must have been studied to create universal data

Berry - Imposed etic

* Research should always be in meaningful contexts
* Conducted by researchers close to the study culturally
* Can help reduce imposed etic