Issues and debates

• Gender and culture in psychology

  Universality and bias
• Gender bias


  • Androcentrism
  • Alpha bias
  • Beta bias
• Androcentrism


  A view that exaggerates the differences between men and women, which usually (although not always) devalues women
• Alpha bias


  A view that exaggerates the differences between men and women
• Beta bias


  A view that ignores or minimises the differences between men and women
• Gender bias is a result of androcentrism. Most research has judged male behaviour to be the 'normal' behaviour and women to be 'abnormal'
• Studies that show differences between genders are often believed to be biological, when actually they could be due to social differences
• Institutions, such as universities are still dominated by men, which means women are seen as 'abnormal' in comparison to men
• Research into gender bias is still infrequently published and is also less funded. This suggests it's not taken seriously
• Ethnocentrism


  Judging other peoples' culture from the values of your own culture
• Cultural relativism


  Behaviour cannot be judged properly unless it is viewed in the context of the culture in which it originates
• Emic constructs


  Are specific to a given culture and vary from one culture to another, they look at behaviour from the inside of the cultural system
• Etic constructs


  Analyses of behaviour focuses on the universality of human behaviour, universal factors that hold across all cultures
• Imposed etic


  Taking findings from one culture and assuming it can be applied universally
• As researchers become more aware of cultural bias, there has been a move towards using more native researchers to conduct research and interpret results
• Like many classic studies, replications of Asch found that there were differences in conformity in individualist and collectivist cultures, demonstrating cultural bias in the original
• Cultural bias has led to prejudices against certain groups. For example, IQ tests were used to claim that African-Americans were genetically inferior during WWI
• Free will


  The belief that we have a choice in determining our thoughts and actions and are not controlled by biological or external forces
• Determinism


  The belief that behaviour is caused by internal or external forces that we cannot control
• Hard determinism


  An extreme position that implies that free will is not possible as our behaviour is always caused by internal and external events beyond our control
• Soft determinism


  Behaviour does have causes but we also have the ability to make rational conscious choices
• Biological determinism


  The belief that behaviour is caused by biological (genetic, hormonal, evolutionary) influences that we cannot control
• Environmental determinism


  The belief that behaviour is caused by features of the environment (e.g. reinforcement) that we cannot control
• Psychic determinism


  The belief that behaviour is caused by unconscious conflicts that we cannot control
• Twin studies never show us 100% concordance rates, so it is unreasonable to assume that our behaviour can be purely biologically determined
• Everyday experience 'give the impression' that we are constantly exercising free will through the choices we make on any given day
• Our legal system relies on free will to hold people responsible for crimes. If we take a hard deterministic approach then this has implications for how we sentence criminals
• Nature


  Influences on our behaviour that are inherited and/or innate
• Nurture


  Influences on our behaviour that come from the environment or our experiences of the world
• Interactionist approach


  Most psychologists will look at the relative contributions of nature and nurture, rather than believing only one causes behaviour, and how they interact with each other
• Diathesis stress model


  Behaviour has a predisposition in our genes but it requires an environmental trigger for it to actually be expressed
• Epigenetics


  Refers to life experiences that can change the way our genes expressed. Environmental influences, such as lifestyle, can leave marks on our DNA which can last our whole lifetime and even be passed to our children
• Adoption studies have proved useful in understanding the relative contributions of nature and nurture as researchers can assess the heritability of characteristics without children having the same upbringing (nurture)
• By understanding the nature-nurture debate, researchers can almost predict the heritability of certain disorders. This means potential sufferers can be given prevention strategies to help prevent it being expressed
• If we discover certain genetic predispositions to behaviours or personality traits then this could lead to gene editing by scientists. This could have moral implications for future generations of children
• Holism


  Attempting to understand human behaviour by analysing the person or the behaviour as a whole rather than its constituent parts
• Reductionism


  Analyses behaviour by breaking it down into its constituent parts
• Levels of explanation


  There are several ways or levels to explain behaviour. The lowest level considers biological explanations, the middle level examines psychological explanations and the highest level looks at social and cultural explanations
• Biological reductionism


  Includes the biological level and explains behaviour through genetic, neurological or neurochemical causes, as well as evolution
• Environmental (stimulus-response) reductionism


  All behavior is learned (behavioural approach) and can be explained through stimulus-response links (conditioning)