approaches key terms

• Issues & Debates


  The issues and debates in psychology consider some of the important arguments in relation to conducting research and explaining behaviour. The key issues and debates include gender and culture in psychology; free will and determinism; the nature-nurture debates; idiographic and nomothetic approaches and ethical issues and social sensitivity.
• Alpha Bias


  An alpha bias refers to theories that exaggerate the differences between males and females.
• Androcentrism


  Androcentrism refers to theories that are centred on, or focused on males.
• Beta Bias


  A beta bias refers to theories that ignore or minimise sex differences. These theories often assume that the findings from studies using males can apply equally to females
• Biological Determinism


  Biological determinism refers to the idea that all human behaviour is innate and determined by genes.
• Biological Reductionism


  Biological reductionism refers to the way that biological psychologists try to reduce behaviour to a physical level and explain it in terms of neurons neurotransmitters, hormones, brain structure, etc.
• Causal Explanations


  Science is heavily deterministic in its search for causal relationships (explanations) as it seeks to discover whether X causes Y, or whether the independent variable causes changes in the dependent variable.
• Cultural Relativism


  Cultural relativism insists that behaviour can be properly understood only if the cultural context is taken into consideration.
• Culture Bias


  A cultural bias is the tendency to judge people in terms of one's own cultural assumptions.
• Determinism


  Determinism is the view that free will is an illusion, and that our behaviour is governed by internal or external forces over which we have no control.
• Environment


  The environment is seen as everything outside the body, which can include people, events and the physical world.
• Environmental Determinism


  Environmental determinism is the view that behaviour is determined or caused by forces outside the individual. Environmental determinism posits that our behaviour is caused by previous experience learned through classical and operant conditioning.
• Environmental Reductionism


  Environmental reductionism is also known as stimulus-response reductionism. Behaviourists assume that all behaviour can be reduced to the simple building blocks of S-R (stimulus-response) associations and that complex behaviours are a series of S-R chains.
• Ethical implications


  Ethical implications consider the impact or consequences that psychological research has on the rights of other people in a wider context, not just the participants taking part in the research.
• Ethnocentrism


  Ethnocentrism means seeing the world only from one's own cultural perspective, and believing that this one perspective is both normal and correct.
• Free Will


  Free will is the idea that we can play an active role and have choice in how we behave. The assumption is that individuals are free to choose their behaviour and are self-determined.
• Gender Bias


  A gender bias is the differential treatment and/or representation of males and females, based on stereotypes and not on real differences.
• Hard Determinism


  Hard determinism is the view that forces outside of our control (e.g. biology or past experience) shape our behaviour. Hard determinism is seen as incompatible with free will.
• Heredity


  Heredity is the process in which traits are passed down genetically from one generation to the next.
• Holism


  Holism comes from the Greek word 'holos', which means 'all', whole' or entire' and is the idea that human behaviour should be viewed as a whole integrated experience, and not as separate parts.
• Idiographic Approach


  The term 'idiographic' comes from the Greek word 'idios', which means own' or 'private'. Psychologists who take an idiographic approach focus on the individual and emphasise the unique personal experience of human nature.
• Interactionist Approach


  An interactionist approach argues that several levels of explanation are necessary to explain a particular behaviour, ranging from lower (biological) to higher levels (social and cultural).
• Levels of Explanation


  The reductionist approach suggests that behaviour can be explained at different levels (e.g. social and cultural, psychological or biological).
• Nature-Nurture Debate


  The nature versus nurture debate is one of the oldest debates in psychology. It centres on the relative contributions of genetic inheritance and environmental factors to human development and behaviour.
• Nomothetic Approach


  The term 'nomothetic' comes from the Greek word 'nomos' which means law'. Psychologists who take a nomothetic approach are concerned with establishing general laws, based on the study of large groups of people, and the use of statistical (quantitative) techniques to analyse data.
• Psychic Determinism


  Psychic determinism claims that human behaviour is the result of childhood experiences and innate drives (id, ego and superego), as in Freud's model of psychological development.
• Reductionism


  Reductionism is the belief that human behaviour can be explained by breaking it down into simpler component parts.
• Social Sensitivity


  Sieber and Stanley (1988) used the term social sensitivity to describe studies where there are potential social consequences for the participants or the group of people represented by the research.
• Soft Determinism


  Soft determinism is an alternative position favoured by many psychologists. According to soft determinism, behaviour is constrained by the environment or biological make-up, but only to a certain extent.
• Universality


  When a theory is described as universal, it means that it can apply to all people, irrespective of gender and culture.