Issues & Debates

• Issues and Debates


  • Gender bias
  • Cultural bias
  • Free will and determinism
  • Nature and nurture
  • Holism and reductionism
  • Idiographic and nomothetic
  • Ethical implications of research studies and theory
• Universality


  The assumption that psychological principles can be applied equally to both males and females
• Gender bias


  • What a gender is treated less favourably than another, leading to misrepresentation
  • Androcentrism - male-dominated (standard)
  • Alpha bias - exaggerating differences
  • Beta bias - minimising differences
• Cultural bias


  • Alpha bias - exaggerating difference
  • Beta bias - minimizing differences
  • Ethnocentrism - own culture behavior is viewed as standard
• Determinism


  Illusion external forces control behaviour
• Free will


  Free choice in behaviour
• Hard determinism


  • Incompatible with free will, assumes every action has a cause
• Soft determinism


  • Constrained by forces but element of free will
• Determinism


  • Biological
  • Environmental
  • Psychic
• Libet's evidence supports determinism - recorded activity in the motor area of the brain before the person had a conscious awareness of their decision to move their finger
• Nature


  Biological factors, heredity
• Nurture


  Environmental factors
• Interactionist approach considers nature and nurture
• Interactionist approach


  • Diathesis-Stress Model
• Holism


  • Understanding behaviour by considering all different factors of a person
• Reductionism


  • Breaking a complex behaviour into component parts
• Levels of explanations


  • Bumanistic
  • Environmental
  • Biological
• Idiographic


  Focus on the individual, hypothesis generating. Use of case studies, unstructured interviews, quantitative methods
• Nomothetic


  Concerned with studying large groups to create universal laws, hypothesis testing. Use of experiments.
• Holt (1967) a combined approach should be used
• Socially sensitive research


  • Leads to change in perception of a group
  • Considerations: Posing research question, dissemination of findings, reflexivity, ethical guidelines, implication of research, use of findings, validity of research
• Psychological Approaches


  • Behaviourist
  • Social Learning Theory
  • Cognitive
  • Biological
  • Psychodynamic
  • Humanistic
• Behaviourist


  • Ignore role of the conscious thought as unscientific
• SLT

  • Internal mental processes (mediational processes) are important in the generation of behaviour and humans
  • Thoughts follow predictable systems that can be displayed as models
• Biological


  • Thoughts are due to the complex interaction of neurons. Can be understood using cognitive neuroscience
• Psychodynamic


  • Large role for unconscious mental processes dominated by the Id /Superego & defence mechanisms
• Humanistic


  • Conscious mind is in control of actions & has free will
• Disorders & Treatment


  • Behaviourist - Use techniques like flooding for phobias leant via conditioning. Part of the development of CBT
  • Cognitive - Disorders are due to maladaptive thought processes (Elis ABC). CBT used to correct
  • Biological - Due to imbalances off neurotransmitters, genes or brain structure. Treat with drug treatments
  • Psychodynamic - Use to childhood development. Psychotherapy as treatment, depends on the process of introspection
  • Humanistic - Focus is on the healthy human not pathology. Unconditional positive regard in client centred therapy
• Behaviourist


  • Environmentally reductionist. Ignores mental processes and socio-cultural expectations
• Cognitive


  • Machine reductionism. The mind is viewed as just a series of processes, similar to software
• Biological


  • Biologically reductionist, ignores learnt behaviours/ sociocultural
• Psychodynamic


  • Reductionist as behaviour due to drives, however, includes aspects of thought process & learning
• Humanistic


  • Fully holistic. Only way to understand human behaviour is to consider all aspects/ levels of humanity
• Childhood development


  • Behaviourist - Development based on environmentally conditioned behaviours learnt via association, reinforcement & punishment
  • Social Learning Theory - Behaviours can be learnt socially during development (vicariously)
  • Cognitive - Development by acquiring schemas about how to interpret the world
  • Biological - Development strongly influenced by genetic factors, inherited due to evolutionary pressure
  • Psychodynamic - Childhood experiences,/ psychosexual stages fundamental in development of adult emotional disorders
  • Humanistic - Heathy development requires unconditional positive regard & satisfying hierarchy of needs
• Nature/Nurture


  • Behaviourist - Nurture, no role for instincts/ bio as born as ''blank slate'' shaped by environment
  • Social Learning Theory - Nurture, however also shaped by observation of other experiences
  • Cognitive - Both, interaction of brain structures & learnt experiences influencing internal mental systems
  • Biological - Nature, behaviour a result of interaction of pre-existing neurotransmitters, gene & brain structure effects
  • Psychodynamic - Both, innate drives & the role of childhood experiences in shaping behaviour
  • Humanistic - Experiences (nurture) most important, but complex interactions with biological aspects
• Ideographic/Nomothetic


  • Behaviourist - Nomothetic, large (animal) experiments providing general laws for human behaviour
  • Social Learning Theory - Nomothetic (use of experimental method in determining general laws)
  • Cognitive - Mainly nomothetic with the use of general mental methods. However, some case studies
  • Biological - Nomothetic, large biological studies used to give general (medical/ physiological) based laws
  • Psychodynamic - Ideographic use of case study, however, attempt to generalise findings (nomothetic)
  • Humanistic - Ideographic. No attempt to make general laws. Instead studies subjective individual experience