Issues and debates

• What is cultural bias?


  The tendency to judge people in terms of one's own cultural assumptions
• What is gender bias?

  When evidence/research leads to different treatment of males and females, based on stereotypes and not real differences.
• What is determinism?

  The view that free will is an illusion, and that our behaviour is governed by internal or external forces over which we have no control.
• What is socially sensitive research?

  Studies where there are potential social consequences for the participants or the group of people represented by the research.
• What is reductionism?


  The belief that human behaviour can be explained by breaking it down into simpler component parts, such ad genetics.
• What are idiographic approaches?

  Approaches that focus on the individual and emphasise the unique personal experience of human nature.
• What are nomothetic approaches?

  Approaches that focus on generating laws of behaviour.
• What is the nature v nurture debate?


  The relative contributions of genetic inheritance and environmental factors to human development and behaviour.