Paper 3 Issues and Debates

• Free will vs determinism


  do we freely choose our actions or is behavior caused by things outside our control?
• 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


  A version of determinism that allows for some element of free will.
• Biological determinism


  Behaviour is caused by biology influences that we can't control.
• Environmental determinism


  Behaviour is caused by features of the environment that we can't control
• Psychic determinism


  Behaviour is caused by unconscious conflicts that we can't control
• Psychic determinism example


  Innate drives and early experiences, repressed childhood memories
• Environmental determinism example


  Mowrer's 2 process model

  Phobia acquired through process of classical conditioning, hard determinism
• Biological determinism example


  Biologically deterministic explanation in OCD, aggression and schizophrenia
• Eval of determinism


  + Scientific approach (phobias explanation)

  - Moral/legal implications of hard determinism (conflicts with the law)

  - Humanism preferred to determinism (believing we exercise free will improves mental health)

  - Free will has face validity, experience tells us we make choices.

  + Libet shows we act before we decide to act, intentions are an illusion.
• Ideographic vs nomothetic


  • Ideographic is concerned with individual and unique insights, no comparison, qualitative data (case studies)

  • Nomothetic is concerned with populations of people, scientific, comparisons patterns and trends. quantitative data
• Idiographic example


  Little hans - case study on one person

  Limitations - No generalisation and lacks evidence

  Psychodynamic approach
• Nomothetic example


  OCD treatments, Milgram, Mary Ainsworth
• How are they not mutually exclusive (complementary)?


  Research conducted into human memory shows 2 approaches are complementary, most evidence for theories of memory (MSM) has come from lab studies and case studies (HM).
• Evaluation of idiographic

  + provides complete global account

  + complement nomothetic by \shedding light on laws

  - Narrow and restricted

  - No generalisations

  - Subjective interpretation of researcher
• Evaluation of nomothetic

  + More scientific

  + Psychologist can establish norms of typical behaviour

  - Accused of losing the whole person

  - Tells little about what life is like with disorder
• Reductionism


  Human behaviour explained through reducing individuals behaviour down into parts. One explanation
• Biological reductionism


  The way biological psychologists reduce behaviour to psychical level (biological components - genetics, neurons)
• Environmental reductionism


  Stimulus - response reductionism, classical conditioning, reduce complex behaviour of attachment to stimulus response
• Rose Levels of explanation


  Lowest = Biological explained in genetics (OCD)

  Middle = Psychological cognitive (depression)

  Highest = Social and cultural (obedience +conformity)
• Holism


  Human behaviour viewed as a whole integrated experience. Humanism is the only holistic approach
• Interactionist


  Several levels of explanation to explain behaviour
• AO3 of holism and reductionism

  Reductionism is scientific (strong evidence, all causes considered)

  Holistic treatment effective (long term)
• Cultural bias


  Tendency to judge people in terms of one's own cultural assumptions
• Henrich at al


  68% of Ps came from USA

  96% of Ps came from industrialised nations
• Ethnocentrism


  Seeing world from one's own cultural perspective and seeing your own as normal and correct
• Cultural relativism


  Behaviour can be properly understood only is cultural context is taken into account
• Imposed etic


  Look at behaviour from outside of a culture and attempt to describe those a universal
• Imposed emic


  Look at behaviour from inside a culture and identify behaviours specific to that culture
• Etic approach AO3 and examples


  Compare and contrast behaviour across cultures (objective and impartial)

  AO3

  - Not from culture studying

  - Not objective and neutral

  - Only look at one culture and apply findings

  Examples

  - Ekman compare people showing different facial expressions from papua new guinea and USA and showed they were universal
• Emic approach and examples


  Culture studied from within, POV of local Ps

  Examples:

  - Lived in Samoa and compared Samoan and US teenagers
• AO3 Cultural bias


  - Important for cultural bias to resolve research by indigenous psychologies and draw conclusions from experiences in people from different cultural contexts.

  - Challenge western thinking 'west not the best'

  - Assume Ps are familiar with general aims and objectives.
• Universality


  - Apply to all people, include real differences.

  - Derived etic (series of emic studies take place in local settings and local researchers)
• Reflexive approach


  Write openly about own assumptions (I am white, hetero male so...)
• Ethical implications


  Refers to wider impact of conclusions of research on society.
• Socially sensitive

  Research studies can have significant ethical implications, whether studies should be allowed, or whether not allowing them has negative impact.
• Lea socially sensitive criteria


  1. Are issues private or sacred? (culture, sexuality)

  2. Will research cause increased stigmatisation or result in harm to a group of people? (race, illegal)

  3. Does research or theory create political threat for a group of individuals? (illegal immigrants)
• AO3 socially sensitive research


  + Benefits for groups = DSM-1 homosexual = Sociopath - new report showed that homosexual is an expression of human behaviour.

  + Real world application = Certain groups rely on research, government looks to research when developing social policies. ONS collect data

  - Negative consequences = criminal gene

  - Poor research design = Erroneous findings have impact. Research fraud exposed on 11+ but it continued anyway.
• Nature debate


  - Human characteristics have genetic cause

  - They are a consequence of heredity, mental and physical characteristics passed down generations

  - Innate

  - Psychologist called nativists
• Nurture debate


  - Behaviour predetermined by environmental factors

  - Links with behaviourists, we are all born as blank slates and we are the product of learning and experience

  - Psychologists known as empiricist

  - Due to prenatal factors through wide ranging social and cultural factors.

  - For example, phobias can be acquired and maintained through the two process model, via both classical conditioning and operant conditioning, but also through vicarious reinforcement.