Issues and Debates

• Universality

  Any underlying characteristic of human beings that is capable of being applied to all, despite differences of experience and upbringing
• Gender Bias

  Psychological research or theory that may offer a view that does not justifiably represent the experience and behaviour of men or women
• Bias

  Tendency to treat one individual or group in a different way from others
• Alpha Bias

  Exaggerates differences which are usually presented as fixed and inevitable

  Freud's psychosexual stages

  Phallic stage desire for opposite sec parent

  Boy has strong castration anxiety, girls identification with same sex parent weaker so Superego weaker, morally inferior

  Chodorow (1968)

  Daughters and mothers have closer connection than sons and mothers because of biological similarity

  So women better develop abilities to bond and empathise
• Beta Bias

  Ignores or underestimates differences

  Assuming it is equally applicable even if excluded from research process

  Fight or flight

  Female behaviour affected by ovulation changes to hormones so males used in research

  Shelley Taylor et al. (2000)

  Tend and befriend

  Love hormone oxytocin more plentiful in females and women respond to stress by increasing production

  Attachment ignores emotional role of the father
• Androcentrism

  Male dominated version of the world

  American Psychological Association published a list of most influential psychologists of the 20th century, 6/100 women

  Traditionally a subject produced by males, for males and about males

  Female behaviour misunderstood and pathologised (sign of illness)

  Feminists object premenstrual syndrome as it medicalises female emotions

  Male anger seen as rational response to external pressures
• Cultural Bias

  Tendency to interpret all phenomena through the lens of one's own culture, ignoring the effects that cultural differences have on behaviour

  Joseph Hendrich et al. (2010)

  Reviewed hundreds of studies in leading psychology journals

  68% of research participants from USA, 96% industrialised nations

  WEIRD (Westernised Educated people from Industrialised Rich Democracies) - group to most likely be studied by psychologists

  Those who don't fit seen as abnormal or inferior

  80% of research participants undergraduates studying psychology
• Ethnocentrism

  Belief in the superiority of one's own cultural group

  Cultural bias

  Ainsworth and Bell (1970) Strange Situation

  Reflects only the norms and values of American culture

  Attachment types

  Ideal attachment moderately distressed when left alone by mother-figure

  Misinterpretation of child-rearing in other cultures

  Japan more insecurely attached because they were more distressed when separated, rarely separated from their mother
• Cultural Relativism

  The idea that norms and values, as well as ethics and morals, can only be meaningful and understood within specific social and cultural contexts

  John Berry (1969)

  Distinction between emic and etic

  Imposed etic when research comes from emic
• Etic

  Looks at behaviour from outside a given culture and attempts to describe those behaviours as universal

  Ainsworth and Bell

  Studied inside America and then assumed ideal attachment type and assessment could be applied universally

  Definitions of abnormality
• Free Will

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

  Doesn't deny external forces exist but that we are able to reject these forces if we wish

  Humanism
• 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 or soft
• Hard Determinism

  All behaviour is caused by something and it should be possible to identify and describe these causes

  Fatalism

  Everything we think and do is dictated by internal or external forces that we cannot control

  Extreme
• Soft Determinism

  Behaviour may be predictable but there is also room for personal choice from a limited range of possibilities

  William James (1890) first suggested it

  Key in the cognitive approach

  Job of scientists to explain what determines our behaviour but this does not detract from the freedom we have to make rational conscious choices in everyday situations
• Types of determinism

  Biological

  Environmental

  Psychic
• Biological Determinism

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

  Autonomic nervous system on stress response, genes on mental health

  Modern biological psychologists would recognise the mediating influence of the environment on our biological structures
• Environmental Determinism

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

  Skinner - free will an illusion, emphasised role of conditioning

  Think we are acting independently but it is a sum total of reinforcement contingencies that have acted upon us through our lives
• Psychic Determinism

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

  Freud - free will an illusion, emphasised biological drives and instincts, free will determined by unconscious conflicts repressed in childhood, no accidents, slip of the tongue explained by unconscious
• Scientific Emphasis on Casual Explanations

  Every event in the universe has a cause, causes can be explained using general laws (hard determinism)

  Knowledge of causes and formulation of laws important as they allow scientists to predict and control the events of the future

  Lab experiments enables researchers to demonstrate casual relationships with all variables controlled
• Nature

  Refers to inherited influences or heredity

  Early nativist Rene Descartes (1596-1650) argued all human characteristics and some aspects of knowledge are innate

  Psychological characteristics like intelligence or personality are determined by biological factors just as physical characteristics like height are
• Nurture

  Refers to the influence of experience and environment

  Empiricist John Locke (1632-1704) argued the mind is a blank slate at birth (tabula rosa) which is then shaped by the environment, important feature of the behaviourist approach

  Richard Lerner (1986) different levels of the environment

  Prenatal factors, physical influences (smoking) or psychological influences (music) affect a foetus

  Postnatal factors, social conditions the child grew up in
• Measuring nature-nurture

  The degree to which two people are similar on a particular trait can be represented by a correlation coefficient - concordance

  Concordance provides an estimate about the extent to which a trait is inherited - heritability

  Heritability is the proportion of differences between individuals in a population, which regards a particular trait, that is due to genetic variation

  Heritability of IQ is about 0.5 across multiple studies in varying populations, half environment and biological
• Interactionist Approach

  Nature-nurture cannot be answered as behaviour comes from a combination of both environment and genetics, eye colour 0.80 heritable

  Bowlby (1958) baby's attachment is determined by the warmth and continuity of parental love

  Kagan (1984) baby's innate personality (temperament) also affects the attachment relationship

  So nature of temperament creates nurture of parent's response so environment and heredity interact

  Now nature-nurture about relative contribution of each influence and how they interact
• Diathesis-Stress Model

  Behaviour caused by a biological or environmental vulnerability (diathesis) which is only expressed when coupled with a biological or environmental trigger (stressor)
• Epigenetics

  Change in our genetic activity without changing the genes themselves

  A process that happens throughout life caused by an interaction with the environment

  Lifestyle and events leave marks on our DNA which switch genes on or off

  May influence genetic codes of children and theirs

  Nature/nurture third element, life experience of previous generations
• Holism

  An argument or theory which proposes that it only makes sense to study an indivisible system rather than its constituent parts

  Gestalt psychologists, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts

  Knowing about the parts does not help us understand the essence of that person

  Focuses on the individuals experience which cannot be reduced into units

  Use qualitative methods to investigate the self whereby themes are analysed rather than breaking the concept into component behaviours
• Reductionism

  The belief that human behaviour is best understood by studying the smaller constituent parts

  Based on the scientific principle of parsimony - all phenomena should be explained using the simplest principle

  Researchers who favour reductionism would see psychology explained by biology, chemistry, physics (increasingly reductionist)
• Levels of explanation in Psychology

  Increasingly reductionist ways to explain psychology:

  Socio-cultural

  Psychological

  Physical

  Environmental/behavioural

  Physiological

  Neurochemical
• Biological Reductionism

  A form of reductionism which attempts to explain behaviour at the lowest biological level

  Includes neurochemical and physiological levels as well as evolutionary and genetic influences

  We are biological organisms so all behaviour is at some level biological

  Biologically reductionist arguments often work backwards: drugs increasing serotonin effective in treating OCD so low serotonin may be a cause of OCD and OCD is reduced to the level of neurotransmitter activity
• Environmental Reductionism

  Stimulus-response

  The attempt to explain all behaviour in terms of stimulus-response links in that have been learned through experience

  Behaviourism built on environmental reductionism as all behaviour is learnt through interactions with the environment, in terms of explaining behaviour with conditioning it focuses on stimulus-response, reducing behaviour to these basic elements
• Idiographic approach

  Derived from Greek idios meaning private or personal

  Approach to research that focuses on the individual as a means of understanding behaviour, rather than aiming to formulate general laws of behaviour

  Focus on detailed info about the individual

  Small number of participants

  Uses qualitative research, first-hand accounts from small number of people, in depth unconstructed interviews, data analysed and emergent themes identified, conclusions may help similar experiences or professionals determine the best practice

  Subjective, individual experience of unique context
• Idiographic Approach in Psychology

  Humanistic Approach - Rogers developed unconditional positive regard theory derived from in-depth conversations with clients in therapy

  Psychodynamic Approach - Freuds careful observations of individuals were the basis of his explanation, Little Hans and phobias
• Nomothetic Approach

  Derived from the Greek nomos meaning law

  Aims to study human behaviour through the development of general principles and universal laws

  Uses quantitative research

  Fits traditional models of scientific method

  Hypotheses are formulated, people are assessed in some way like a structured questionnaire or using psychological tests, numerical data produced is analysed for its statistical significance

  Quantifies human behaviour

  Objective, laws of behaviour only possible if methods standardised ensuring true replication across samples and removes influence of bias
• Nomothetic Approach in Psychology

  Behaviourist Approach - Skinner studied animals to develop general laws of learning

  Biological Approach - Sperry split-brain research which involved repeated testing and used for the basis of understanding hemispheric lateralisation
• Ethic Implications

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

  There also may be consequences on a wider societal level such as social policy

  Some areas of research have greater social sensitivity than others
• Social Sensitivity

  Sieber and Stanley (1988) - studies 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
• Implications for the Research Process - Research Question

  Joan Sieber and Barbara Stanley (1988), the way in which research questions are phrased and investigated may influence the way in which findings are interpreted

  Adrian Coyle (1995) alternative relationships has been guilty of a heterosexual bias where homosexual relationships were compared and judged against heterosexual norms
• Implications for the Research Process - Dealing with Participants

  Informed consent, confidentiality and psychological harmDomestic abuse victims may worry their abuser will learn of the study or find the study distressing following consent
• Implications for the Research Process - The Way Findings are Used

  How findings are used it may impact on what data they collect

  Findings from research may be seen as giving scientific credence to existing prejudice

  Media is interested in socially sensitive info which is publicised

  Adrian Owens research on people in minimally conscious state received enormous media attention when he appeared to make contact with the unreachable