Biological Psychology

Intro Statement:

In psychology, theories are tested by making hypotheses that can be accepted or rejected. For psychology to be considered a science, research must be empirical, objective, valid and reliable

Point 1:

AO1: The biological approach demonstrates the scientific status of psychology as the use of the experimental method in research into brain areas responsible for aggression e.g. Raine 1997 means that research is easy to replicate and therefore be falsified by comparing to other similar studies.

AO3: Raine found lower activity in the prefrontal corticies of murderers’ compared to their controls. This study has tight controls e.g. the same tasks for participants and used a urine drug test to ensure participants were drug free. Raine also limited participant variables by matching participants on their age and sex. This means no extraneous variables affected the relationship between brain function and aggression making results valid.

Point 2:

AO1: However, the use of correlational studies to investigate aggression could mean biological psychology is not scientific

AO3: In Dabbs’ et al study, he found women convicted of unprovoked violent crimes had higher testosterone levels than those who committed non-violent crimes. However, this study is correlational as testosterone levels have not been manipulated to establish a cause an effect relationship with aggression as that would be unethical. This makes biological psychology less scientific as different testosterone levels are naturally occurring so internal validity is compromised.