Issues and debates

• Cultural psychology is an emerging field that strives to avoid ethnocentric assumptions by taking an emic approach and conducting research from inside a culture, often alongside local researchers using culturally based techniques
• Cultural relativism 


  The idea that a behaviour can only be properly understood/only has meaning/only makes sense in the context of the norms and values of the society or culture in which it occurs
• biological approach, all aspects of psychological functioning can be explained in terms of physical factors within the body
• According to the behaviourist approach, we should restrict ourselves to studying behaviours that can be observed and measured scientifically

  We should not concern ourselves with studying mental processes 
• AO3 holism vs reductionism

  + Holims - valid X oversimiply

  • holism - diffucilicut to deicde what is more important facot e,g cbt

  + Reductionsim - more scientific, test, and operationalise

  • oversimiply ignore other factors
• what is a causal explanation

  it s based on the idea that behviour is determined by external or internal factors and there is a cause and effect relationship between these factors
• Universality is the belief that conclusions drawn from psychological research can be applied to anyone 
• Beta bias


  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


  The idea that all human behaviour is innate and determined by genes
• Biological reductionism


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


  Insists that behaviour can only be properly understood if the cultural context is taken into consideration
• Culture bias


  The tendency to judge people in terms of one's own cultural assumptions
• 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


  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


  Seeing the world only from one's own cultural perspective, and believing that this one perspective is both normal and correct
• Free will


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


  The differential treatment and/or representation of males and females, based on stereotypes and not on real differences
• Hard determinism


  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


  The process by which traits are passed down genetically from one generation to the next
• Holism


  The idea that human behaviour should be viewed as a whole integrated experience, and not as separate parts
• Idiographic


  Psychologists who take an idiographic approach focus on the individual and emphasise the unique personal experience of human nature
• Interactionist approach


  Several levels of explanation are necessary to explain a particular behaviour, ranging from lower (biological) to higher levels (social and cultural)
• Reductionist approach


  Behaviour can be explained at different levels (e.g. social and cultural, psychological or biological)
• Nature versus nurture debate

  Relative contributions of genetic inheritance and environmental factors to human development and behaviour
• Nomothetic


  Psychologists 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


  Human behaviour is the result of childhood experiences and innate drives (id, ego and superego), as in Freud's model of psychological development
• Reductionism


  Belief that human behaviour can be explained by breaking it down into simpler component parts
• Social sensitivity


  Studies where there are potential social consequences for the participants or the group of people represented by the research
• Soft determinism


  Behaviour is constrained by the environment or biological makeup, but only to a certain extent