Issues and debates

What are the different levels of explanations that can be used in psychology?

• Social-cultural context

• Psychological level

• Physiological level

• Neurochemical level

What is ethnocentrism?

Evaluating other cultures according to the standards of your own culture, leading to bias where you view your culture as superior

What is reductionism?

View that behaviour is better explained by breaking it down into simpler constituent parts

What is a strength of holism?

• Can explain aspects of social behaviour which reductionism could not

• E.g. Zimbardo - situation must be looked at as a whole to understand behaviours such as deindividuation

• Approach taken to understand behaviours of wider social contexts

What is an example of socially sensitive research with ethical implications?

• Goddard (1917) did research which found IQ to be fully genetic

• Led to eugenic procedures in 1920s where people with low IQs were sterilised

What are examples of idiographic approaches?

• Humanistic

• Psychodynamic

What are examples of nomothetic approaches?

• Biological

• Behaviourist

What does the humanistic approach involve on the idiographic debate?

• Focused on subjective experience of the ‘self’

• Each person’s individual ability to achieve self-actualisation

What does the psychodynamic approach involve on the idiographic debate?

• Freud’s case studies emphasise importance of individual experience

What does the biological approach involve in the nomothetic debate?

• Lab experiments and brain scan evidence on many participants which allows for generalisation of human functioning

What does the behaviourist approach involve in the nomothetic debate?

• Lab experiments on animals e.g. rats, pigeons, geese, monkeys where generalisable laws of learning have developed from

What is cultural relativism?

Idea that norms, values and behaviours are culturally specific and not universalizable. Should be evaluated in the context of the culture they occur in

What is the difference between the emic and etic approach?

• Etic - when a researcher does an investigation in one culture and tries to apply it to another (imposing etic)

• Emic - when a researcher conducts study in same culture they are studying

What is universality?

When conclusions can be applied to everyone regardless of which place, culture or time a person is in

What is determinism?

Belief that behaviour is determined by external/internal forces acting on an individual that is outside their control

What is the difference between hard and soft determinism?

• Hard - no control over what directs our lives

• Soft - behaviour determined by external/internal forces but we do have some control

What are three types of determinism (and what determines behaviour)?

• Biological - genes

• Environmental - factors outside individual e.g. parents, media, previous experience (adopted by schools and SLT)

• Psychic - childhood experience and innate drives (id, ego, superego) as in Freud’s psychological development model

What is free will?

Ability to choose to behave without being influenced by external forces

Which approaches are nurture based?

• Behaviourist

• Humanistic

• Social learning theory

• Psychodynamic (can be either)

What is the difference between nativists and empiricists?

• Nativists - all human characteristics result of heredity

• Empiricists - all human characteristics results of environment and experience

What is beta bias and an example of it in research?

• Beta bias - when differences between genders are minimised which can lead to researchers forming invalid theories

• Taylor et al (2000) - found women have a tend and befriend response rather than fight or flight

What is androcentrism?

When behaviour is judged to be normal when compared to male standard. Leads to female behaviour being judged as abnormal

What is a consequence of gender bias in psychological research?

Can impact on females’ lives. Research where gender bias is involved can easily present scientific justification for denying women opportunities in the workplace and society