Issues and debates

• Gender bias


  Research/theories that offer a view which is not justifiably representative of men and women experience and behaviour
• Alpha bias (gender)


  Gender differences are exaggerated or overestimated
• Beta bias (gender)


  Gender differences are ignored or underestimated
• Androcentrism 


  Centred /focused on men ,and neglecting or excluding women
• Universality 


  Underlying characteristic (behaviours) capable of being applied to everyone
• Cultural bias 


  Tendency to interpret all phenomena through the lens of one’s own cultural assumptions
• Ethnocentrism 


  Tendency to base perception of or judge other groups of cultures on one owns culture
• Alpha bias(cultural)


  Exaggerating differences between cultures
• Beta bias (cultural)

  Ignoring differences between cultures
• Cultural relativism


  Idea that attitudes/behaviours/values are best understood within the specific cultural context it originates from
• Emic 


  Functions within certain cultures ,aiming to identify behaviour relative to that culture
• Etic

  Looks at behaviour from the outside of a culture ,and attempts to find trends that can be generalised
• Determinism 


  Behaviour is controlled by external or internal factors acting upon the individual
• Biological determinism 


  Behaviour is controlled by our genetics
• Environmental determinism 


  All behaviours cause by previous experience
• Psychic determinism 


  Adult behaviour determined by a mixture of innate drives and early experience (Freuds psychoanalytic theory )
• Scientific determinism 


  All events have a cause,IV manipulate to observe casual effect on DV
• Hard determinism 


  All behaviours can be predicted , there is no free will
• Soft determinism 


  Allows some element of free will
• Naturę 


  Behaviour is seen to be a product of innate (biological or genetic ) factors
• Nurture 


  Behaviour is a product of environmental influence
• Holism 


  Belief that an individual reacts as a organised whole ,rather than a set of stimulus-response links
• Idiographic 


  Focuses on individuals and emphasises uniqueness (favours qualitative methods )
• Nomothetic 


  Formulates general laws of behaviour based on study of groups & statistical techniques
• Ethical issues 


  Conflict between rights of participants and the way the researchers carry out the research
• Ethical implications 


  Considers impact or consequences that psychological research has on the right of other people in the wider context
• Socially sensitive research 


  Studies where there are potential social consequences or implications for the participants or the group of people represented by the researcher