Issues and debates

• Gender bias: the tendency to view people in a certain way based on their gender.

  Androcentrism: Male-centred, when normal behaviour is judged to male standard

  Alpha bias: psychological theories that suggest there is a real and enduring difference between men and women

  Beta bias: Theories that ignore or minimise differences between sexes
• Reflexivity


  Many modern researchers are beginning to recognise the effect their own values and assumptions have on the nature of their work. Rather than seeing such bias as a problem that may threaten the objective status of their work, they embrace it as a crucial and critical aspect of the research process in general.
• Sexism within the research process

  A lack of women appointed at senior research level means that female concerns may not be reflected in the research questions asked. Male researchers are more likely to have their work published and studies which find evidence of gender differences are more likely to appear in journal articles.
• Free will: we can play an active role and have choices in how we behave.

  Determinism: view that free will is an illusion, and that our behaviour is governed by internal or external forces which we have no control over
• Hard determinism: Implies that free will is not possible as our behaviour is always caused by internal or external events beyond our control.

  Soft determinism: All events, including human behaviour have causes but behaviour can also be determined by our conscious choices.

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

  Environmental Determinism: The belief that behaviour is caused by features of the environment

  Psychic determinism: The belie that behaviour is caused by unconscious conflicts that we cannot control
• The behaviourist approach:

  • Skinner argues that all behaviour is determined h environmental events and that humans tend to repeat behaviour that is rewarded.
  • Skinner states that free will was simply an illusion.
  • Bandura criticises skinner for being too deterministic - if this was true we would change our behaviour constantly in response to changing environment
• The psychodynamic approach:

  • Our behaviour is determined by childhood experiences
  • Internal systems such as defence mechanisms determine the way people behave
  • Success of psychoanalysis as treatment for mental disorders
  • psychic determinism: Frued- implies free will is an illusion, human behaviour is determined by unconscious conflicts.
  • People can change their behaviour
• Biological approach:

  • Behaviour is determined by a persons genes and internal systems
  • we can predict our behaviour as a consequence of our Brian structure and functions
• Cognitive approach:

  • Consequences of our thinking is not always within our control
  • Soft determinism: The free will of our thoughts is limited to the constraints of our mental capacity
• Nature: Is the view that behaviour is the product of innate biological or genetic factors

  Nurture: Is the view that behaviour is the products of environmental influences

  Epigenetic: A change in our genetic activity without changing our genetic code. Caused by things such as lifestyle

  Interactionist approach: Is the view that both nature and nurture work together to shape human behaviour
• Biological reductionism: Reduces behaviour to biological structures and ignores the whole

  Environmental reductionism: The behaviourist approach reduces behaviour to simple stimulus-response association
• Benefits of Holism:

  • Provides a more complete picture
  • Accepts and deals with the complex nature of behaviour
  • Behaviour is influenced by many factor, so holistic explanations may be more useful

  Weakness of Holism:

  • It is difficult to investigate the many differing types and levels of explanations
  • More hypothetical- not based on empirical evidence
  • Lacks predictive power of more scientific explanation
  • Neglects importance of biological influences
• Benefits of reductionism:

  • Consistent with the scientific approach
  • Breaking phenomena down into smaller components means that empirical methods can be used
  • Easier to explain behaviour in concrete and concise terms
  • High levels of predictive power

  Weakness of reductionism:

  • Ignores complexity of behaviour and can Be oversimplified
  • Context is important in understanding meaning of behaviour
  • Focuses on a single level of explanation leaves out other levels of explanations
• Idiographic: understanding behaviour through studying individual cases

  Nomothetic: Understanding behaviour through developing general laws that apply to all people
• Idiographic AO3:

  strength: Provides a complete and global account of the individual

  Limitation: Supports of the idiographic approach must still recognise the narrow and restricted nature of their work

  Nomothetic AO3:

  Strength: processes involved in nomothetic research tend to be more scientific.

  Limitation: prediction and control has been accused of ‘losing the whole person’ within psychology
• Cultural bias: A tendency to ignore cultural differences and interpret all phenomena through the lens of one’s own culture.

  Ethnocentrism: Judging other cultures by the standards and values of one’s own culture

  Cultural relativism: The idea that norms and values, as well as ethics and moral standards can only be meaningful and understood within specific social and cultural contexts