My issues and debates

• Universality


  Any underlying characteristic of human beings that is capable of being applied to all
• Ekman (1989)


  Argued that facial expressions are an example of universality
• Gender Bias


  When one gender is treated in a different way from another
• Androcentrism


  When 'normal' behaviour is judged according to a male standard and so anything which deviates from this is seen as 'abnormal'

  PMS is often thought as a stereotype when in fact is a diagnosable disorder under the DSM-5
• Alpha Bias


  Psychological theory which suggest a difference between males and females e.g. Wilson's sociobiological theory of relationship formation
• Beta Bias


  Theories that ignore or minimise the differences between males and females e.g. Freud
• Gender Bias


  Evaluation: Implications of bias- misleading assumptions of female behaviour// Sexism within research- more likely to be published if highlighting differences between males and females// Reflexivity- psychologists now consider this when conducting research
• Cultural Bias


  The tendency to ignore the cultural differences and interpret information through the 'lens' of our own culture ie. in 1992, 64% of the worlds psychology researchers were American
• Ethnocentrism


  Judging other cultures by the standards and values of one's own cultures and in extreme cases the superiority of one e.g. Ainsworth's strange situation
• Cultural Relativism


  The idea that norms, values and morals can only be understood within a specific social and cultural context
• Berry (1969)


  Distinguished between etic and emic
• Etic

  Looks at behaviour outside of a culture and attempts to describe those behaviours as universal
• Emic


  Looks at behaviours within a certain culture an describes behaviour within that culture
• Cultural Bias


  Evaluation: Individualism and collectivism// Relativism vs universality// Unfamiliarity with research tradition
• Free Will


  The notion that human being can make choices that are not determined by biological or external forces
• Determinism


  The idea that behaviour is controlled by forces e.g. genetics or external forces e.g. conditioning
• Hard determinism


  Implies free will is not possible as our behaviour is always caused by events beyond our control, sometimes called fatalism
• Soft determinism


  First put forward by James (1890): All events have causes but we can also control our conscious choices in the absence of coercion
• Biological determinism


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

  The idea that behaviour is caused by features of our environment
• Psychic determinism


  The idea that behaviour is caused by internal conflicts we cannot control
• Evaluation of determinism


  Advantages: compatible with aims of science with the ideas of general laws

  Applications in the development of therapies and medication e.g. antipsychotics for schizophrenia

  Schizophrenia shows we do not have complete free will- who would choose?

  Disadvantages: Inconsistent with our legal system

  Unfalsifiable- impossible to prove wrong
• Evaluation of free will

  Advantages: we feel like we are in control of decisions giving it face validity

  Internal LOC are more mentally healthy

  Disadvantages: Libet (1985) found that simple decisions e.g. which hand to press a button with were decided before we were conscious of the task

  At least some are determined
• Roberts (2000)

  Found people with an internal LOC were more mentally healthy ie. less likely to develop depression
• Nature-nurture


  Concerned with the extent to which aspects of behaviour are a product of inherited or acquired characteristics
• Heredity


  The genetic transmittion of mental and physical characteristics from one generation to the next
• Heritability coefficient


  On a scale of 0 to 1 (extent to which a characteristic is inherited)
• Environment


  Any influence on human behaviour that is non-genetic

  For example pre-natal conditions
• Interactionist approach


  Nature and nurture are linked to such an extent it is not logical to separate them, instead study how they interact or influence each other

  Belsky and Rovine (1987) nature creates nurture ie. innate temperament
• Rene Decartes

  Early nativist
• Richard Lerner (1986)


  Identified levels of environment which are both pre and post-natal
• Diathesis-stress model


  Model of mental illness which emphasises the role of both nature and nurture e.g. Tienari found that adoptees were more likely to develop schizophrenia if their biological parents had it and they suffered some sort of trauma
• Epigenetics


  A change is genetics without a change in the genetic code
• Dias and Ressler (2014)

  Gave male lab mice electric shocks and released a small amount of a chemical with a distinctive smell

  They found that the children and grandchildren who were not conditioned also showed fear of the smell
• Nature-nurture


  Evaluation: Implications of nature- people with low IQ sterilized in the// Implications of nurture- a behaviour shaping society where we can be controlled// Shared and Unshared- differences in siblings// Constructivism- people seek a nurture that fits their nature
• Dunn and Plomin (1990)

  Said that siblings may experience life events e.g. parents divorce differently due to factors such as age and temperament
• Holism

  The argument that it only makes sense to study indivisible system rather than in it's constitute parts
• Reductionism

  The belief that human behaviour is best explained by breaking it down into smaller constitute parts
• Biological reductionism


  A form of reductionism that attempts to explain social and psychological phenomena at a lower biological levels

  Led to development and understanding of the effect of psychoactive drugs
• Environmental reductionism


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