Issues and debates

• Gender bias

  • This when psychological theories and research may not accurately represent the experiences of both men and women
  • This can be through both alpha or beta bias
• Alpha bias

  • This is when psychological theories exaggerate the differences between the sexes
  • Differences are usually presented as enduring, fixed and inevitable
  • In the context of psychology research is more likely to devalue women in relation to men
• Beta bias

  • This when psychological theories or research tend to ignore of minimise the differences between men and women
  • This often occurs in psychology when female participants are not included in the research process and it's assumed the behaviour of the male participant can also apply to females.
• Androcentrism

  • Is a consequence of beta bias
  • This is when normal behaviour is judged according to the male standard
  • This means that any other behaviour which deviates from this male standard is judged as abnormal or inferior
  • It describes a male-centred approach to psychology and places a masculine point of views at the centre of all behaviour
• Universality

  • Any underlying characteristic of human behaviour that is capable of being applied to all, despite difference of in experience and upbringing
  • The universality of psychology is undermined by gender and cultural bias
• Cultural bias

  • When researchers ignore the influence of cultural difference on behaviour and assume we all interpret all phenomena through the lens of ones own culture
• Ethnocentrism

  • Judging other cultures by the standards and values of ones own culture
  • In an extreme form it's the belief in the superiority of ones own culture.
  • This leads to prejudice and discrimination against other cultures
• Cultural relativism

  • The view that behaviour can not be judged properly unless it's viewed in the context of the culture in which it originates
• Imposed etic

  • Taking findings from one culture and assuming it can be applied universally
• Emic VS Etic

  • Approaches to psychological research identified by Berry
  • Etic approach looks as behaviour outside a a given culture and attempts to describe them as universal
  • Emic approach function within certain cultures and identifies behaviour specific to that culture
• Free will

  • The notion that we human are essentially self-determining
  • We are free to choose our own thoughts and actions
  • There are biological and environmental influences on our behaviour but free will implies that we can rejects them
• Hard determinism

  • A fatalistic point of view
  • The notion that all human action has a cause
  • It should therefore be possible to identify these causes
  • This view is compatible with the aims of science and suggests that what we do dictated by internal and external factors out of our control
• Soft determinism

  • The notion that all human action has a cause but we have the conscious mental control over out behaviour
  • James (1890) felt that scientists should identify these causes but we still have freedom to make our own choices
• Biological determinism

  • The beliefs that all human behaviour is governed by psychological, genetic and hormonal processes
• Environmental determinism

  • The notion that we are by our conditioning
  • Our experience of 'choice' is limited to the sum total or all our reinforcement history
  • We may think we are acting independently but our behaviour has been shaped by environmental events
• Psychic determinism

  • The belief that all behaviour is governed by unconscious conflicts of which we are unaware of
  • This type of determinism was popularised by Sigmond Freud
• The scientific emphasis on casual relationships

  • A main principle of science is that every event has a cause and that each of those causes can be explained by general laws
  • It is the knowledge of these laws that allows scientists to control and predict future events
  • Psychological laboratory experiments help psychologist simulate the conditions of a test tube. They remove all extraneous variables in an attempt to control and predict human behaviour
• Nature

  • The view that all behaviour is the product innate biological and genetic factors
  • Psychologists who support this point of view are know as nativists
• Interactionist approach

  • An approach to psychology which seeks to explain behaviour as a result of both biology (nature) and environment (nurture)
• Holism

  • Involves studying people people and their behaviour as a whole
  • Gestalt German psychologist felt that the 'whole is greater that the sum of its parts
• Reductionism

  • A way of analysing behaviour by breaking it down into its constituent parts
• Levels of explanation

  • The notions there's different ways of understanding the same behaviour
  • Some of these views may be more reductionist than others
• Biological reductionism

  • Type of reductionism based on the premise that were are all biological organisms therefore on some level all behaviour is biological
  • For this reason all behaviour can be explained through neurochemical, genetic and evolutionary influences
• Environmental reductionism

  • The breakdown of complex learning into simple stimuli and response
• Idiographic approach

  • An approach to to studying behaviour that emphasises the unique and individual experience
  • Through this approach people are studied as unique entities and there is no attempt to establish general laws abut human behaviour
• Nomothetic approach

  • An approach to studying behaviour with the main am of establishing general laws abut behaviour
  • These laws provide a benchmark which people can be compared, classified and measured