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Issues and debates - Coggle Diagram
Issues and debates
Gender bias
Universality
- the idea that any conclusion drawn about an underlying characteristic of human beings can be applied to all people
- the aim to develop theories that apply to all people, which may include differences
Gender bias
- the differential treatment or representation of men and women based on stereotypes rather than real differences
Beta bias
- ignores or minimises the differences between men and women
- tend to ignore questions about the lives of women
Alpha bias
- exaggerate differences between men and women
- theories devalue one gender compared to the other
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Androcentrism
- centered or focused on men, often to the neglect or exclusion of women
Cultural bias
Cultural bias
- judge all people in terms of your own cultural assumptions
Ethnocentrism
- seeing from the point of view of ourselves and our social group
Cultural relativism
- view that behaviour cant be judged properly unless it is viewed in the context of the culture which it originates
Culture
- the rules, customs, morals and ways of interacting that bind together member of society or some other collection of people
Ethical implications
Ethical guidelines
- introduces in 1960s to protect the rights of research participants
- right to withdraw
- deception
- informed consent
- confidentiality
- protection from harm
- debrief
Ethical implications
- the impact/consequences of the research on the rights of other people
Socially sensitive research
- studies that have potential consequences or implications for either the participants themselves or those represented by the study
- e.g. Research on the role of fathers
Concerns with socially sensitive research
- Sieber and Stanley (1988) identified concerns with socially sensitive research
- research question
- methodology
- interpretation of findings
- institutional context
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Nature and nurture
Nature
- behaviour is seen to be a product of innate factors
- began with nativists
- heredity
- e.g. biological explanations of OCD
EVALUATION
Strengths
- objective methods used
- can show cause and effect
Weaknesses
- suggests we have no control over our own behaviour
- reductionist
Nurture
- behaviour is a product of environmental factors
- began with Empiricists
- mind is blank slate at birth
- e.g. learning explanations of attachment
EVALUATION
Strengths
- allows for intervention programmes
- wide range of research used
Weaknesses
- hard to establish cause and effect
Holism and reductionism
Holism
- an approach to understanding the human behaviour by looking at the whole experience rather than the individual features
- e.g. the behaviourist approach, learning explanation of attachment, the two process model of phobias
EVALUATION
Strengths
Weaknesses
- can fail to identify any single cause of behavior - can make it difficult to apply to real world
Reductionism
- an approach that breaks complex phenomena into more simple components to understand it
- e,g, biological explanations for OCD, Bowlby's theory of attachment, genetic and neural explanations for crime
Biological reductionism
- explains behaviour in terms of genetic, neurochemical, evolutionary and physiological mechanisms
Environmental reductionism
- explains behaviour in terms of simple stimulus-response links learned through experience
Experimental reductionism
- reducing complex behaviours to isolated variables for conducting research
EVALUATION
Strengths
- enables more concrete understanding
- focuses on elements enables greater testability
Weaknesses
- fails to take account of context of behaviour