issues & debates

• psychologists hold beliefs and values that have been influenced by social and historical context within which they live. these beliefs may be biased
• bias - means to influence, one sided

  eg Mead, Ainsworth, Zimbardo, Asch, Freud
• gender bias - psychological theory and research may offer view that doesn't justifiably represent experience and behaviour of men or women
• alpha bias - differences between men and women, typically one undervalued
• alpha bias - Freud's psychodynamic theory of moral development

  • argued women had less morals as their superegos are less developed concepts of penis envy and femininity as failed masculinity are guilty of alpha bias
• alpha bias - Bowlby

  • critical period of 2 years
  • law of accumulated separation
  • undervalues men
• beta bias - minimise differences between sexes
• beta bias - Milgrams baseline research on obedience

  • all of his participants were male so results can't be generalised to women especially as they found out women are more obedient
• beta bias - flight and fight theory

  • all research as conducted on men, and it was said to be universal but women freeze more
• androcentrism - male centred, when normal behaviour is judged according to male standard. female behaviour is seen as abnormal
• androcentrism - premenstrual syndrome

  • meditates womens emotions in hormonal terms
  • however, in males, its seen as normal
  • when males show aggression, its normal. when females show aggression, its abnormal
• androcentrism - Milgram

  • by not including females, makes them look abnormal
• limitations of gender bias is problems in psychological research. gender biased research may create misleading assumptions about female behaviour and validate discriminatory practices. may provide scientific evidence to deny women opportunities within workplace or wider society. gender bias in research isn't just methodological problem, but may have damaging implications of real women
• limitation of gender bias is it promotes sexism in research process. women are underrepresented in university departments, so research is more likely to be conducted by males. this means female concerns may not be reflected in research questions asked and males are more likely to have work published. this means psychology may be guilty of supporting a form of institutional sexism that creates bias
• another limitation is that gender bias in research may have damaging consequences for women. statistics from some research studies on depression may have damaging consequences for females. for example, females may not be given a job opportunity due to findings of such research. this suggests such research in psychology needs to be aware of the implications
• cultural bias - ignore cultural differences and interpret all phenomena through lens of ones own culture, ignoring effects that cultural differences may have on behaviour
• Henrich - reviewed 100s of studies in psychology journals and found 68% research participants came from US, and 96% from industrialised nations. coined the term WEIRD to describe group of people most likely to be studied by psychologists - westernised, educated people from industrialised rich democracies
• ethnocentrism - judging other cultures by standards and values of ones own culture
• ethnocentrism - Ainsworth

  • desirable attachment type is secure attachment
  • in other countries, they have other attachments and Ainsworth research is discriminatory
  • Ainsworth is enthocentric as she would have judged other attachment types
• ethnocentrism - Maslow's hierarchy

  • argued all individuals strive for self actualisation
  • people from collectivist cultures won't want this as they care more about the group than individual
• cultural relativism - behaviour can only be understood and recognised within social and cultural context it was studied in
• cultural relativism - Maslow's hierarchy

  • study was conducted in America
  • should only be generalised in western cultures
• strength of cultural bias is emergence of cultural psychology. cultural psychology is study of how people shape and are shaped by cultural experience. research is conducted from inside a culture, alongside local researchers using culturally based techniques. suggests modern psychologists are taking steps to avoid cultural bias
• limitation of cultural bias its many classic studies are culturally biased. Asch and Milgrams studies in social influence were conducted with exclusively US participants. replications of studies in different cultures found significantly higher rates of conformity than the original studies in collectivist cultures. suggests our understanding of topics should only be applied to individual cultures
• strength of cross cultural research is it challenges western assumptions. one of the main strengths of cross cultural research is that it may challenge our typical western ways of thinking and viewing the world. Mead study found:

  • 1 - masculine
  • 2 - feminine
  • 3 - opposite

  means the conclusions psychologists draw are likely to have more validity if they recognise role of culture
• free will - humans are self determining and free to choose their own thoughts and actions
• hard determinism (fatalism) - all human behaviour has cause and should be possible to identify causes
• soft determinism - all human action has cause but people have freedom to make choices within restricted range
• biological determinism - behaviour is caused by functioning of brain, hormone system, neurotransmitters, genetics, and evolution, which is outside of control
• environmental determinism - behaviour occurs because theres cause in environment. behaviour is caused by persons culture and upbringing, which is outside of their control
• psychic determinism - all behaviour, thoughts and feelings were caused by biological drives and contents of unconscious mind which is outside persons control. saw human behaviour determined by unconscious conflicts repressed in childhood
• behaviourist - environmental determinism

  • all behaviours caused by conditioning and learning from environment
  • phobias - when person associates bad experience that causes fear with neutral stimulus, can't control process of classical conditioning
  • gender - operant conditioning
• cognitive - soft determinism

  • people are capable of choosing their own thoughts and memories, however, these may be affected by biological limitations and past experiences
  • depression - Beck's negative triad and errors in thinking that cause depression but person can choose to pay attention to thoughts or not
  • phobias - phobia about phobic stimulus but caused by negative thoughts associated
  • gender - biological aspect but you choose how to act upon them
• social learning theory - soft determinism

  • behaviour is caused by observing role models but cognitive mediators affect whether person chooses to display behaviour
  • phobia - child can't control what role models they're exposed to in environment but can choose whether they imitate phobic behaviour
  • gender - child can't control what role models they are exposed to but can choose to imitate gender behaviour
• psychodynamic - psychic determinism

  • all behaviour, thoughts and feelings were caused by contents of unconscious mind
  • gender - caused when child identifies with same sex parent during phallic stage when they're resolving oedipus or electra complex, an unconscious process they have no control over
  • phobia - when child fails to identify with same sex parent, they displace it onto stimulus
• humanistic - freewill

  • people are free to choose how they think and behave. they consider that being responsible for our actions means we can't do whatever we want
  • depression - choose their ideal self and self concept and how they feel about themselves and if they are incongruent, they'll develop depression
  • phobias - free to choose how to act about phobic stimulus
  • gender - choose to act feminine or masculine
• biological - biological determinism

  • brain, hormones, genes and neurotransmitters cause our behaviour and decisions we make
  • OCD - caused by inheriting it from parents via genes
  • phobias - natural selection
  • gender - chromosomes and hormones
• strength of determinism is its consistent with aims of science. notion that human behaviour has causes and obeys laws places psychology on equal footing with more established sciences, increasing credibility. prediction and control of human behaviour has led to development of treatments. experience of schizophrenia suggests some behaviours are determined
• limitation of determinism is hard determinism isn't consistent with our legal system. offenders are morally responsible for actions in law. only in extreme circumstances are juries instructed to act with leniency. eg Kolhbergs theory for explaining animal behaviour and idea of moral reasoning shows people do think about their thoughts and actions and have certain level of choice in behaviour. shows soft determinism may be more realistic when explaining most behaviours
• strength of determinism is everyday experiences give the impression that we're exercising free will on daily basis, giving face validity. idea of free will makes sense to people as most people believe they're making choices on regular basis. making choices allows people to have independence having positive influence on people and their minds. researchers have found that adolescents who believe in fatalism have an increased chance of depression. middle ground is therefore more useful when explaining human behaviour. soft determinism accounts for free will and certain level of control