issues and debates

• what is culture bias?

  When differences between cultures have not been considered properly, leading to a biased (or potentially biased) conclusion.
• cultural bias - milgram 1963 male general population
• What is ethnocentrism?

  A culture bias that leans in favour of a particular culture because the research has only been conducted using participants of that culture.
• What can you remember about the Strange Situation?​

  Conducted in America, Ainsworth tested children’s anxiety and separation from a primary caregiver. ​

  It was suggested that the ‘ideal’ type of attachment was secure characterised by infants showing moderate amounts of distress when left alone. ​

  This led to misinterpretation of child-rearing practices in other countries which seems to deviate away from the American norm. ​

  Eg, German mothers were seen as cold and rejecting but were encouraging independence.  
• what is the etic approach?

  A focus across multiple cultures to understand elements that apply across all cultures.
• what is the emic approach?


  A focus on a single culture to understand it within a local context.
• what are some evidence for culture bias?

  • was done on relationships.​
  • Much of the early research on how relationships form and end was done using white UK/US participants.​
  • This led to theories that were culturally biased.​
  • When cross-cultural studies were carried out, only a few universal behaviours were found.​
• culture bias =

  • Argyle et al (1986) found some universal similarities, for example distinguishing between intimate and non-intimate relationships.​
  • They also found many differences, such as a greater focus on obedience in the East than in the West.​
• what is cultural relativism?


  What a person believes, the views they have, and the behaviours they display is tied up with their cultural background.
• Cultural bias in mental health

  • This leads us to question the validity of the DSM/ICD.​
  • DSM-5 updated criteria to reflect cross-cultural variation in presentation and includes a clinical interview tool. ​
  • DSM introducing an appendix of cultural concepts of distress that refers to ways that cultural groups experience, understand, and communicate suffering, behavioral problems, or troubling thoughts and emotions.
• • DSM is typically used in America and ICD is typically used in Europe. ​
  • However, they are both used to classify and construct mental illness in non-western cultures and assume there is no difference between cultures.​
  • Many cultures have no concept of depression as a illness (e.g. Malaysia).​
  • The Hopi people of N. America have 5 separate illnesses that contain elements of what could be described as depression, even though they have no recognition of depression itself.​
• cultural bias strengths

  • Globalisation allows us to connect with other cultures easily which decreases cultural difference. Takano (1999) found that 14/15 comparison studies of Japan and USA showed no evidence of traditional differences.​
  • Reciprocity, interactional synchrony, and basic emotions are universal.
• culture bias limits

  • Western participants may assume research procedures, so demand characteristics may be a problem for western research with western sample. ​
  • Operationalising variables may not be the same cross-culture. Eg, invading personal space is normal in China. 
• strengths culture bias -

  Cross-cultural research challenges typical western views. 

  • Globalisation allows us to connect with other cultures easily which decreases cultural difference. Takano (1999) found that 14/15 comparison studies of Japan and USA showed no evidence of traditional differences.​
  • Reciprocity, interactional synchrony, and basic emotions are universal.
• what is a bias?

  Prejudice either for or against something.
• what is andocentrism?

  •  gender bias that leans in favour of males because the research comes from a male-centred view of the world.​
  • If research only uses male participants and the findings are deemed as ‘normal’ behaviour then any behaviour that deviates from this is seen as ‘abnormal’, ‘inferior’ or ‘deficient’. ​
• ANDROCENTRISM - Tarvis (1993) suggested most cultures take male behaviour as standard and therefore women make the decision to behave like men or different. ​

  • This leads to female behaviour being misunderstood or pathologised. ​
• what is alpha bias?

  Any differences between males and females are exaggerated.​

  ​
• what is an example of alpha bias?

  • Freud’s theory of psychosexual development.​
  • This exaggerated the importance of males and assumes that what is true for males also applies to females.​
  • Freud argued that because girls do not suffer the same oedipal conflict as boys, they do not identify with their mothers as strongly as boys identify with their fathers, and so develop weaker superegos.​
• what is beta bias?

  Any differences between males and females are minimised or ignored.
• what is an example of beta bias?

  • Milgram (1963), Asch (1951), Zimbardo (1971) - PPTs were all male.​
  • Kohlberg’s stage theory of moral development (1958) was based on extensive interviews that he conducted with boys aged 10-16. ​
  • His classification system is based on a morality of justice.
• gender bias STRENGTHS

  • Being reflexive within research allows for critical developments and awareness of personal biases.​
  • Knowledge of alpha bias has heightened awareness of gender differences and questioned the value of male characteristics in society.​
  • Knowledge of beta bias has led to the recognition of the importance of equality.​
• GENDER BIAS LIMITS

  • Gender bias can create misleading assumptions about female behaviour; fail to challenge negative stereotypes and validate discriminatory practices. ​
  • Glass ceiling – lack of senior female researchers means female concerns are not expressed. Male researchers more likely to have published work. 
• what are the criteria of a science?

  • Psychology is a scientific discipline.​
  • We look for causal explanations for phenomena.​
  • Knowing the causes of things allows us to make predictions about what will happen.​
  • The intervention of free will does not allow for this to happen. ​
  • This is therefore a central debate across psychology.
• STEPHEN MOBLEY 1991 -

  • At age 25, he walked into a pizza store and shot the manager in the head before robbing them, joking that he would apply for the vacancy. ​
  • His lawyer defended him, stating that it wasn’t an act of free will but the consequence of genetic predisposition. ​
  • The past 4 generations of Mobley’s family had all been convicted for violent attacks, rape and murder. ​
  • The ‘criminal gene’ argument began but the appeal was disregard by the Judge, and he was executed by lethal injection.
• what is free will?

  • The belief that our behaviour is governed by our choices.​
• What are some features of free will?

  • We can make voluntary actions and have freedom of choice with no restraints. ​
  • We are self-determining, in that we decide our futures. ​
  • A belief in free won't mean that we deny that biological or environmental factors can influence our behaviour. ​
  • It means that we can reject those forces, shaping our own lives. ​
• what is determinism?

  • What happens must happen and could not have occurred in any way other than the way it did.​
  • The opposite of free will – we have no control or choice over our actions.​
• determinants come from a combo of sources

  • Determinants come from a combination of sources: ​
  • Biology (biological determinism)​
  • Environment (environmental determinism)​
  • Unconscious and conscious thoughts (psychic determinism)​
  • The determinism debate has progressed with Psychology and can be separated into soft and hard determinism.
• what is hard determinism?

  Hard determinism excludes the possibility of free will.
• what is soft determinism?

  • Soft determinism takes the position that some aspects of our behaviour are determined, the rest are open to free will.​
• what is biological determinism?

  • role of biology within our actions. ​
  • Many of our physiological and neurological processes are not consciously controlled. ​
  • Mental disorders, behaviour and characteristics are thought to have a genetic basis. ​
  • Research into aggression has demonstrated the role of hormones. ​
  • The environment also influences our biological structures which means we’re ‘doubly-determined’ by forces we can’t control. ​
• what is environmental determinism?

  • Our behaviours are shaped by environmental events as well as agents of socialisation. ​
  • Classical conditioning expresses an association between stimulus and response which is out of the individual's control. ​
  • Operant conditioning applies a law of effect, whereby a particular consequence will make a behaviour more likely, however, there could be an element of free will within this. ​
  • SLT is less deterministic as it acknowledged a mediational process. ​
• what is psychic determinism?

  • Freud also believed that freewill is an illusion. ​
  • Freud claims that every action has a cause which is determined by unconscious conflicts.​
  • Individuals ae unable to explain how or why they behaved in a certain way unless they underwent psychotherapy.​
  • Freudian slips (parapraxes) are an example of the unconscious mind. 
• determinism STRENGTHS

  • Determinism is consistent with the aims of science. We have been able to predict human behaviour and develop treatment, therapies and interventions due to this​
  • Nobody would choose to have mental illness which casts doubt on free will. 
• FREEWILL STRENGTHS

  • Free will makes cognitive sense (face validity).Research suggests we have an internal locus of control. ​
  • Roberts et al (2000) found that adolescents with a fatalist attitude had a significantly greater risk of developing depression.
• DETERMINISM LIMITS

  • Hard determinism is no consistent with the way in which our legal system works – Offenders are held morally accountable. ​
  • Determinism is unfalsifiable – we aren’t’ aware of behaviours that don’t exist yet and we can’t prove them wrong which reduces its scientific credibility. ​
  • MZ twins fail to show 100% concordance rates. 
• FREEWILL LIMITS -

  • Soon et al (2008) found that brain activity can be seen up to 10 seconds before a participants declares conscious movement and decision to move. ​
  • Self-determination may be a culturally relative idea (individualistic cultures)
• what is holism?

  Holism is the idea that a system should be viewed as a whole, rather than as a collection of individual parts.
• HOLISM

  • Breaking behaviour into experiences or pieces is inappropriate. We need to look at people as a whole to understand them. 
  • Gestalt psychologists aimed to revolutionise psychoanalysis in the 1920s and rejected any ideas of thinking, feeling and actions being separate. ​
  • They aimed to view human behaviour as a whole and human behaviour because of free will and choice of responses to their environment (here and now).