Issues and Debates

• Use of Children in Psychological Research: Ethical Issues


  Protection: Children might show higher levels of anxiety compared to adults in any experimental setting which is strange or unfamiliar environment to them

  Right to withdraw: children may not fully understand that they can withdraw from research or know how to express this effectively

  Valid consent: researchers should involve parents and carers, considering theirages. Giving enough information and respecting their choices is key
• Use of children in research - practical issues


  Language barriers: for young children this implies researchers must explore alternative methods for gathering data beyond typical questioning techniques

  Sampling issues: accessing children can be a problem due to safe guarding. More likely to be an opportunity sample which is unrepresentative

  Demand Characteristics: Older children might be less naive compared toyounger ones, as they may wish to seek approval from adult researchers
• Application to every day life 


  Can real life behaviour be explained using the research?

  1. You must identify applications of the research
  2. You must consider whether there are any factors within the research that limit its practical applications.
  3. e.g. Grant et al’s study on effectiveness of opiates and CBT. CBT can be used to treat those patients who are treatment resistant for impulse control disorders
• Nature Vs Nurture


  Nature argues that GENETICS and BIOLOGICAL factors shape who we are (we are born with these characteristics)

  Nurture argues that the characteristics we develop are a result of our environment of learning through childhood (upbringing and culture)
• Individual Vs Situational 


  Individual: Behaviours are influenced by factors within the person

  Situational: Behaviours are influenced by factors in the external environment
• Determinism vs Free will


  Determinism: free will is not real. Our actions are shaped by forces beyond our control, either internal or external

  Free will: suggests that individuals can actively decide and choose their actions - assumed people have the freedom to determine their behaviour
• Idiographic Vs Nomothetic 


  Idiographic: Focuses on individual uniqueness and subjective experiences. Tends to include research methods which produce qualitative data like self reports or unstructured interviews

  Nomothetic: attempts to generalise people and focuses on finding general patterns and laws that apply to everyone. Tends to include research methods which produce quantitive data like lab experiments
• Reductionism Vs Holism


  Reductionism: behaviour should be explained in its simplest form. Support deterministic view and claims behaviour is predictable as it can be determined by one factor

  
  

  Holism: considers how different factors at each level contribute to behaviour - looks at the whole picture rather than just a specific part
• Cultural differences: 


  Much psychological research is collected prodominantly from one culture and may not apply other cultures.

  Most research comes from the Western side of the world - this could affect results given that these individuals are likely to come from a well off educated background - meaning any decision made of research could be biased