Issues and debates revision - AQA psychology A Level

Revision notes on issues and debates in psychology for AQA A Level psychology.

1. Psychology Revision: Issues and debates Ella Warwick

2. Specification Gender and culture in psychology – universality and bias. Gender bias including androcentrism and alpha and beta bias; cultural bias, including ethnocentrism and cultural relativism. Free will and determinism: hard determinism and soft determinism; biological, environmental and psychic determinism. The scientific emphasis on causal explanations. The nature-nurture debate: the relative importance of heredity and environment in determining behaviour; the interactionist approach. Holism and reductionism: levels of explanation in psychology. Biological reductionism and environmental (stimulus-response) reductionism. Idiographic and nomothetic approaches to psychological investigation. Ethical implications of research studies and theory, including reference to social sensitivity.

3. Gender bias Psychologists seek universiality but bias may be unavoidable. Gender bias – psychological theory may not represent the experience and behaviour of both men and women. Alpha bias – exaggerates or overestimates the differences between the sexes. E.g. sociobiological theory of relationship formation (males try to impregnate as many females as possible and females preserve their eggs). E.g. Freud said that femininity is failed masculinity. Beta bias – ignores or underestimates the differences between the sexes. This often happens when results are generalised from one sex to everyone. E.g. Kholberg’s theory of moral development is based on a male sample yet was deemed universal. E.g. fight or flight response generalised to all humans (studies now show females actually show a ‘tend and befriend’ response due to oxytocin) Androcentrism – a consequence of beta bias that judges females by a male standard of normal due to research. Female behaviour is then misunderstood. May give scientific justification to deny women opportunities in the work place. Female concerns may nor be reflected in male dominated research. Male psychologists are more likely to have work published. ‘Inevitable’ (essentialist) arguments are often political movements disguised as facts – “intellectual activity shrinks the ovaries”. Feminist psychology arose to say women should be studies in a real life context rather than being objects.

4. Cultural bias Cultural bias – psychological theory may not represent different groups of people. Studies of conformity (Asch) and obedience (Milgram), revealed different results when replicated around the world. Ethnocentrism – any behaviour that doesn't conform to the model is deficient or underdeveloped. E.g. Ainsworth’s strange situation – misinterpretation of child rearing practices which deviated from the American norm. German mothers were seen as rejecting when they were encouraging independence. Respecting cultural relativism helps avoid cultural bias. Etic approach – looks at behaviour from outside a given culture and identifies universal behaviours. E.g. Ainsworth imposed etic. Imposed etic shows there are some culturally relative concepts and that there are also universal ones. Emic approach – identifies behaviours specific to that culture. Using terms individualist and collectivist cultures is too simplistic. Cross-cultural research is prone to demand characteristics – validity. Variables under review may not be the same in different cultures. E.g. emotions give rise to different behaviours. Cross-cultural research challenges western assumptions which can promote greater sensitivity of individual differences and cultural relativism. – conclusions drawn will have greater validity.

5. Free will vs determinism Free will – humans are free to choose their thoughts and actions. This is the view of the humanistic approach. Everyday life gives the impression of us constantly making our own decisions (free will has face validity). Even if we don ’ t have free will we are positively affected by the idea of it, fatalists are more prone to depression. Not supported by neurological evidence – brain activity related to which hand to press the button with had occurred 10 secs before conscious awareness. Hard determinism (fatalism) – what we do is dictated by uncontrollable internal and external forces. Not consistent with legal system as offenders should be morally accountable. Not falsifiable. Soft determinism – there are determining forces on us but we conscious control over behaviour. Biological determinism – we are controlled by physiological, genetic, and hormonal processes. Environmental determinism – we are determined by our conditioning, we may think we are acting independently but we are just a result of our experiences. (behaviorist approach). Psychic determinism – we are directed by unconscious conflicts (Freudian). Science looks at cause and effect, where x is determined by y. Consistent with the aims of science – increases psychologies scientific credibility. Development of middle ground approach – helps understand aspects of human behaviour that aren’t so straightforward.

6. Nature-nurture debate Nature (nativists) – human characteristics are innate and hereditary. The general figure for IQ hereditability is 0.5. As it isn’t 1 this means it cant be purely nature. Leads to race and eugenics movements. Nurture (empiricists) – argue the mind is a blank slate at birth (behaviorist approach), these are pre and post natal. It is impossible to answer. In twin studies it is hard to tell whether concordance rates are due to shared genetics or upbringing. Interactionism E.g. Attachment – behaviour is affected by innate temperament and parental responses. Diathesis stress – mental disorder is caused by vulnerability and stressor. In Finish adoptees those most likely to develop schizophrenia had relatives with the disorder and dysfunctional relationships. Epigenetics – change in genetic activity without changing codes. Epigenetic marks are left on out DNA because of our lifestyle, which can affect genetics of future generations. Gave male rats electric shocks when smell perfume, offspring showed fear of smell without shocks. Interactions can be explained by constructivism – people create their own nurture appropriate to their nature. – niche picking and niche building. (aggressive child choses to be around other aggressive children). Evidence for gene-environment interaction – 3 types: passive, evocative, and active. Understanding the nature-nurture debate relates to other debates (biological determinism / environmental determinism).

7. Holism vs reductionism Holism – people and behaviour should be studied as a whole system. (humanistic approach). Some behaviours occur in group context and cannot be studied individually e.g. Stanford prison study deinvidualisation. Is impractical – it is difficult to establish the most influential factor for mental illnesses to use for therapy. Reductionism – breaking down behaviour into constituent parts. Scientific credibility – forms the basis of scientific research and operationalised variables can be created. Lacks validity – it oversimplifies by not looking at social context, it often doesn ’ t tell us why so can only form part of an explanation. Levels of explanation (gets more reductionist) e.g. OCD: Socio-cultural level – behaviour (recognised as socially odd) Psychological level – individuals thoughts (obsessive thoughts) Physical level – sequence of movement (hand washing movement) Physiological level – physical brain activity (hypersensitivity of basal ganglia). Neurochemical level – chemicals (underproduction of serotonin). Hierarchy of science (reductionism): Sociology Psychology Biology Chemistry Physics Biological reductionism – physiological and neurochemical level. Environmental reductionism – physical level behaviorist stimulus-response links. Interactionist approach – lead to multidisciplinary approaches to treatment e.g. combining therapy and drugs.

8. Idiographic and nomothetic approaches Ideographic approach – aims to describe the nature of the unique individual where people are studied individually. It is associated with qualitative data. Includes humanistic psychology and the psychodynamic approach (however frued thought he developed universal laws – nomothetic). Provides rich data e.g. HM, can generate hypothesis for further study. Meaningful generalisations cannot be made and rely on subjectivity of the researcher and study. Nomothetic approach – aims to produce general laws that people can be compared against, and produce predictions from. It is associated with reliable scientific methods (questionnaires and psychological tests). This involves study of large numbers to establish similarity. These scientific standardised procedures that asses reliability, validity, and use statistical analysis give psychology greater scientific credibility. Behaviourist, cognitive, and biological research would meet the criteria. Lose the person – Participants are treated as a set of scores not a person e.g. memory tests . knowing that there is a 1% risk of developing schizo tells us little about what its like to live with it. The two approaches may be complimentary rather than contradictory – using both to develop laws and look at individual case studies gives us richer details.

9. Ethical implications of studies and theories Ethical implications – arise when there is conflict between psychologies need for valid results, and preserving rights and dignity of participants. Researchers can control their treatment of participants but cant control the wider impact of their research on the world e.g. effects on public policy. Socially sensitive research – when there are potential social impacts on participants or a class of individuals. Psychologists shouldn't shy away from them because of the research importance. Concerns of socially sensitive research: Implications e.g . prejudice E.g . studies that tackle taboo topics (race, sexuality, gender ). Public policy E.g . genetic basis of criminality. E.g. Burt’s research that said intelligence is genetic, and the 11+ exams were based around this. This was later discredited as he had made some of the research up. Validity of research – objective findings often turn out to be invalid years later after more research. Studies in to socially sensitive topics may lead to a greater understanding and less prejudice. Lead to research being entered with an open mind without natural bias e.g. homosexual relationships being compared against heterosexual ones. Can be used as an argument for social control e.g. eugenics movement . Gives understanding of potential damage caused by socially sensitive research if it got into the wrong hands and how to avoid this. An ethics committee may not always be able to weigh up costs and benefits as they cant be predicted. Although ethics committees didn't exist during Milgram's studies, he couldn't have known the damage of the study as he only predicted 2% to go all the way to 450V.