Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Issues and Debates (Gender Bias (Bias may be an inevitable part of the…
Issues and Debates
Gender Bias
-
-
-
Androcentrism - normality is judged from the male standard, e.g. female aggression explained by PMS
-
Sexism within the Research Process - Questions orientated towards male concerns
Preference for results showing a general difference
Lab experiments disadvantage women
-
Essentialism - Gender differences presented as 'fixed' in nature, often politically motivate
-
Nature-Nature
-
Nature
Nativists argue that human characteristics are determined by heredity and the extent of this can be measured using a heredity coefficient
-
The Interactionist Approach - Attachment (temperament and parenting)
Diathesis-Stress to explain schizo (Tienari et al.)
Epigenetics: Interactions between genes and the environment may affect future generations
Implications of Nativism and Empiricism - Nativism may indirectly promote eugenicist (selective breeding) philosophy
Behaviour shaping may lead to 'big brother' society
Shared and Unshared Enviro - siblings raised together may have very different experiences and this would explain why MZ twins show different concordance rates
Constructivism - People create the nurture that fits their nature through niche-picking and niche-building suggesting impossible to separate (Plomin)
Genotype-Enviro Interaction - Gene-enviro interaction includes passive, evocative and active forms, pointing to a couple and multi-layered relationship between the two (Scarr and McCartney)
-
Cultural Bias
-
Ethnocentrism - when one's own culture is seen as the 'norm' or 'standard' e.g. Ainsworth's Strange Situation
Cultural Relativism - Berry suggested that psychology has taken an etic approach and should be emic (Acknowledging cultural relativism)
Individualism-Collectivism - Distinction may be too simple
May no longer apply; Takano and Osaka found no evidence
Cultural Relativism vs. Universality - It should not be assumed that all human behaviours are culturally specific, there are some universals - such as aspects of attachment and facial expressions of emotion
Unfamiliarity with Research Tradition - demand characteristics are more likely in an unfamiliar situation
Operationalisation of Variables - Some behaviours not expressed in the same way e.g. displays of aggression may be culturally relative
Challenging Implicit Assumptions - Researcher's own cultural biases may be challenged, taken-for-granted assumptions may not be universal
Holism and Reductionism
The Gestalt Approach valued holism, reductionism relates to the principle of parsimony
Levels of Explanation - Sociocultural, psychological, physical, physiological, neurochemical
Biological Reductionism - Explaining behaviour through physiological processes
The effect of drugs on the brain has furthered understanding of biochemical processes
Environmental Reductionism - Behaviourists are only concerned with learning at a physical level (and ignore cognitive mental processes)
-
-
The Interactionist Approach - combines levels of explanation, e.g. Diathesis-Stress model
Ethical Implications
-
Socially Sensitive Research - Psychologists have a social responsibility to carry out
Research that has potential consequences for participants
Sieber and Stanley identified concerns - Implications, Uses/Public Policy, the validity of the research
Can benefit society, e.g. reduce prejudice towards minority groups
Framing the Questions - Phrasing of research questions may influence outcome
Investigators must keep an open mind so as to not offend minority groups
Findings may be misused and/or abused e.g. research into subliminal messages and public manipulation
Social Control - In 1920s USA, feeble minded were sterilised - based on psychological research on IQ, e.g. Goddard
-
-
-