Key Issues and Debates in Psychology

Nature vs Nurture
1. The Nature Nurture debate in psychology is concerned with the extent to which some aspects of different behaviour are either a product of inheritance or have been learned/ aquired
  1. This is used to explain how some behaviours are genetically inherited whereas some may be learned throughout the person's life
    1. Characteristics and differences that aren't observable at birth are said to emerge later in life due to maturation
      1. Some say we have a sort of "biological clock" which switches on and off certain behaviours in a pre-programmed way
        An example of physical maturation would be puberty
        Nativists believe in this approach, believing that there isn't just biological maturation (e.g. puberty) but that there is also psychological maturation
        Nativists adopt an extreme belief on the hereditary argument in this debate
  2. Environmentalists make the assumption that at birth the mind is a blank slate and over time it's filled due to an increasing amount of experience
    1. This is the argument where it's believed that psychological characteristics and differences in behaviour are learned over time and not necessarily inherited
      1. They believe that it's how you are brought up in your childhood in which governs the psychologically significant aspects of child development
        This argues that the concept of maturation applies only to the biological not psychological
Free Will vs Determinism
1. The Determinist approach proposes that all types of behavioure is the product of preceding factors and is therefore predictable
  1. The casual/basic laws of determinism forms the basis of science
2. Free will is the idea that each person is able to have some choice in how we act
  1. This assumes that we are free to choose our behaviour and in fact that we are self determined
3. Determinism
  1. Some approaches within psychology see this source as being beyond the individual
    1. This is known as environmental determinism
    2. Other approaches would see it as coming from the inside of the human
      1. This would be in the form of unconscious motivation or genetic determinism
4. Free Will
  1. This is a main assumption of the humanistic approach and it's that humans have free will
    1. This means that not all behaviour is determined
  2. For humanistic psychologists, freedom is not only possible, however it's also necessary for each individual to become fully functional human beings
  3. Cognitive psychologists are also inclined to attribute importance to free will and adopt only a small determinist view
    1. They focus more on the choice of means rather than focussing on our choice of ends in which humanists do
      1. They focus on making a decision that has their main interest
Reductionism vs Holism
1. The reductionist would say that "the simple is the source of complex"
  1. Essentially, to explain a complex phenomenon, the person must reduce the large, complex idea to more constituent elements
2. The Holist believes that the whole is much more than just many parts
3. This debate is a large controversy in which raises many questions about the nature of explanation
4. Reductionism
  1. The belief that human behaviour can be explained if it's broken down into smaller component parts in which cause the end result
  2. They look at the very simplest parts that make up our systems and use the simplest explanations to understand how they then work
    1. It's based on the scientific assumption of parsimony
      1. This means theta the complex phenomena is easiest explained by the simplest underlying principles
5. Holism
  1. This refers to any approach in which emphasized the whole rather than the smaller constituent parts
    1. This approach therefore suggests that there is to be many different levels of explanation and that at each level there are emergent properties
      1. These emergent properties cannot be reduced as used in reductionism
Ideographic vs Nomothetic
1. Psychologists who adopt the nomothetic approach are concerned with studying what we share with others
  1. That is to say in establishing laws or generalizations
2. Psychologists who adopt the idiographic idea are more interested in discovering what makes ever human unique and individual
3. Personality
  1. Personality has been split into 5 parts and that all these small traits sum up to make our overall personality
    1. From a nomothetic point of view these parts are considered to adequately describe the psychologically significant aspects of any individual personality
    2. From a Idiographic point of view, the 5 parts don't adequately explain the personality, for example Gordon Allport found over 18,000 separate terms in which described personal characteristics
Culture Bias
1. Culture bias is when someone or a group of people have the tendency to judge other people based on their cultural assumptions
2. Ethocentrism
  1. This is when someone will see the world from their own singular cultural perspective and believing that one's own belief is normal and correct
    1. Ethnocentrism tends to be referred to as a lack of awareness of the fact that other cultural perspectives and beliefs are just as valid as one's own
  2. Rack (1984) claims how African-Caribbeans in Britain are sometimes diagnosed as being so called mentally ill, this is becauase oif their behaviour in which is normal for their subculture but not Britain's
3. Cultural Relativism
  1. Cultural relativism says how behaviour can only be fully understood if all cultural context is taken into consideration
  2. This viewpoint believes that the meaning of intelligence is different depending on each culture
Gender Bias
1. The Gender bias in society causes differential treatments of both males and females throughout society
  1. These are mainly based on stereotypes
    1. Some typical stereotypes as found by Maccoboy and Jacklin in 1974 would be:
      1. Girls
        Less aggressive
        Greater verbal ability
      2. Boys
        Greater arithmetical ability
        Greater visual/spacial abilities
2. Androcentrism
  1. Means centred/dominated by males and can be both conscious and unconscious
    1. Most psychologists used to be males so there tended to be a highly male point of view within their research
3. Alpha Bias
  1. This is when the differences between males and females are highly exaggerated
  2. The evolutionary approach in psychology is highly criticised because of this as it was used to explain why men were more "dominant"
4. Beta Bias
  1. Beta bias ignores all differences between females and males
    1. Findings are often assumed to apply to both males and females
Ethical Implications
1. Ethical Implications of Research Studies
  1. An example would be Milgram's research in 1963
    1. In this research the participants were deceived and were unable to give any fully formed consent
      1. The participants were forced to continue against their own will
      2. The participants were then debriefed after the research and a year later showed no signs of long term effects
2. Ethical implications of Theories
  1. Bowlby's Theory of Attatchment
    1. This theory suggests that children form one special attatchment bond, which is usually with their mother
      1. This takes place in a critical period and can affect future relationships
        This encourages that a women's place is at home with her children in which could make some motheres feel guilty for goint back to work
3. These implications are the effects or consequences of research and theories within psychology

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