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ISSUES & DEBATES debates (ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS OF
RESEARCH STUDIES…
ISSUES & DEBATES 
GENDER BIAS
Beta bias
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Androcentrism - normal behaviour drawn from research on all-male samples so female behaviour may be misunderstood or taken as sign of illness eg. PMS medicalises female emotions
Evaluation
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3) Strength is that an understanding of gender bias leads to reflexivity (the effect of researchers values on their work)
1) -ve implications of gender bias in psychological research - misleading assumptions about female behaviour
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Alpha bias
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e.g.. sociobiological theory of relationship formation - men promiscuous & women going against nature if promiscuous -exaggerates difference between sexes
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ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS OF
RESEARCH STUDIES & THEORY
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Concerns include social implications, public policy & validity
Socially sensitive research includes investigation of criminality or race e.g.. genetic basis of criminality
Burt's research on IQ had consequences for UK school children - said intelligence genetic & influenced 11+
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FREE WILL & DETERMINISM
Biological Determinism
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= control from physiological, genetic & hormonal processes
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Determinism
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Hard - fatalism, all human behaviour has a cause, compatible with science - what we do dictated by internal or external forces we can't control
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Psychic determinism
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Behaviour directed by unconscious conflicts, repressed in childhood eg. slip of the tongue
Free Will
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May be biological & environmental forces that also influence behaviour but able to reject these forces
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Evaluation
Limitation of hard determinism - legal system says morally accountable for behaviour except Law of Diminished Responsibility
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NATURE-NURTURE DEBATE
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Interactionist approach to mental illness: diathesis-stress model e.g.. biological/genetic vulnerability (diathesis) coupled with environmental trigger (stressor)
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Epigenetics - life experience of previous generations from lifestyle & events leave marks on DNA & influence genetic code of children
Nurture - environmental influences eg. learning & experience pre- (Mum's state during pregnancy) and postnatal
Evaluation
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Strength - gene-environment interaction can be elaborated by constructivism (people selecting environments)
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Nature - innate & genetic influences, usually 0.5 heritability e.g.. IQ
CULTURAL BIAS
Ethnocentrism (superiority of one's own cultural group) results in a view of other behaviours as deficient e.g.. Ainsworth's Strange Situation showed differences in US and German attachment
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Results of Western research assumed to apply to every culture - Asch & Milgram had different results when not US participants
Etic - universal - looks at behaviour from outside a given culture & attempts to describe behaviours that are universal
Psychological research may not be universal - often studies apply to particular groups of people - differences seen as "abnormal, inferior or unusual"
Emic - culture specific - functions from within or inside certain cultures & identifies behaviours that are specific to that culture
Evaluation
Limitation - distinction between individualism (US) & collectivism (India) - past research on individualist cultures (US)
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Limitation - cross-cultural research may be more prone to demand characteristics - Western research the participants familiarity with aims of scientific enquiry is assumed
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HOLISM & REDUCTIONISM
Psychology can be replaced by Hierarchy of Reductionism - sciences such as physics for micro & sociology for macro
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Levels of explanation from socio-cultural to neurochemical - may be different ways of viewing same phenomena in psychology e.g..OCD = physical movements of washing hands, physiological hypersensitivity of basal ganglia
Environmental reductionism at physical level, behaviourist stimulus-response links
Reductionism - breaking down behaviour into consitutent parts - parsimony = lowest level principles such as individual cell
Evaluation
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Strength of reductionism is scientific credibility eg. break target behaviours into constituent parts to create operationalised variables
Limitation of reductionist is lack of validity e.g.. oversimplifying complex phenomena (neuron but ignores social context)
Holism - people, experience & behaviour should be studied as a whole system e.g.. Gestalt & humanistic psychologists
IDIOGRAPHIC & NOMOTHETIC
Nomothetic
Questionnaires & psychological tests, large no.s of people
Includes behaviourist research - reductionist, determinist & scientific methods
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Idiographic
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Qualitative research methods eg. case studies , unstructured interviews & other self-report measures
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