AQA A LEVEL PSYCHOLOGY PAPER 3 ISSUES & OPTIONS
1. What is universality?: Any underlying characteristic of human beings that is capable
of being applied to all, despite differences @#$%^&*()_
of experience and upbringing
2. What is gender bias?: One gender is treated in more or less favourable ways, based on
gender stereotypes rather than real reasons
3. What do alpha-biased theories do?: exaggerate differences between men and women
4. What do beta-biased theories do?: ignore or minimize differences between men and
women and/or exaggerate the similarities
5. What is androcentrism?: the idea that the male thinking and behaviours are 'normal'
and 'standard' whilst female thinking and behaviours are 'abnormal,' as there's a lack of
research focussed on female participants as their differences to men have been
minimised
6. What is gynocentrism?: the female thinking and behaviour are 'normal' whilst male
thinking and behaviour is 'abnormal'
7. What are 3 examples of beta-biased, in the year 12 spec?: Asch: only focussed on the male
sample, but generalised to the whole population
Zimbardo: investigated social roles, but only used males
Biological research into fight or flight response has only been carried out on males as they
have less hormone variation in hormone levels.
8. What is a weakness of gender biased studies?: There have been some differences
between men and women taken as fact, which have since been proven false. Maccoby and
Jacklin found girls had superior verbal ability, whereas boys have superior spatial ability -
biological facts. Since this, Joel at al used brain scanning and found no differences in brain
structure and processing according to sex
9. What is a strength of gender bias?: Some stereotypes are useful to explore, as they may be
proven/disproven in biological origin. Ingalhaliker at al found that the stereotype of
women being able to multitask better than men may have biological origin - women may
have better connections between the right and left hemisphere
10. What is a weakness of gender biased studies - sexism?: Can promote sexism. Male
researchers are more likely to have their work published, and studies which find evidence of
gender differences are more likely to appear in journal articles than those that do not.
Nicolson labels female ppts as: unreasonable, irrational, and unable to complete complex
, AQA A LEVEL PSYCHOLOGY PAPER 3 ISSUES & OPTIONS
tasks in lab experiments
11. What is a strength of gender bias - practical applications?: Awareness means that
current researchers are much more careful when designing studies and developing theories.
@#$%^&*()_
Worrell and Remer developed criteria aiming to avoid gender bias in research such as
women being studied within meaningful, real-life contexts
12. What is cultural bias?: The tendency to judge people in terms of one's own cultural
assumptions.
, AQA A LEVEL PSYCHOLOGY PAPER 3 ISSUES & OPTIONS
13. What is the emic approach?: The investigation of a culture from within the culture
itself. More likely to have high ecological validity,
@#$%^&*()_as findings are less likely to be
distorted or caused by a mismatch between the researcher and study's groundings.
14. What is the etic approach?: a theoretical idea, assumed to apply to all cultures. Etic
constructs are considered universal.
15. What are imposed etics?: Where a construct from one culture is applied
inappropriately to another
16. What is ethnocentrism?: When a researcher assumes their own culturally specific
practices or ideas are 'natural' or 'right.'
17. What is cultural relativism?: Behaviour, norms and values can only be properly
understood if the cultural context is taken into consideration.
18. How does Ainsworth's strange situation show culture bias?: This shows imposed etic
as it assumes all cultures are the same regarding attachment, and generalises to the whole
population, when it was only conducted on American pairs (also, ethnocentrism)
19. How does Asch's study show culture bias?: Conducted on 123 White Amer- icans -
imposed etic
20. How does classification of ideal mental health suffer from culture bias?: - Jahoda
classified IMH using a 6-point list. This was ethnocentric, as the points were based on a
western viewpoint, stressing personal autonomy. Collective/Individual societies.
21. What is an example of a weakness of cultural bias - oppression?: Nobles argues
western psychology has been a tool of oppression and dominance. The US army used IQ
test before WWI which was culturally biased toward white majority. The test showed
African Americans were at the bottom of the IQ scale.
22. What is an example of strength of culture bias?: Indigenous psychologies is the
development of different groups of theories in different countries. For eg - Afrocentrism
- because all black people have roots in Africa, theories about them must recognise
African context.
23. What is another weakness of culture bias - overstated?: Takano and Osaka found 14 out
of 15 studies comparing the USA and Japan found no evidence of distinction between
individualism and collectivism - we are becoming more and more culturally similar. Need to
be cautious of alpha-bias.
, AQA A LEVEL PSYCHOLOGY PAPER 3 ISSUES & OPTIONS
24. What is a strength of acknowledging cultural bias?: Shows there is a need for greater
variety of cultures to study. Smith and Bond found that, in European textbooks, 66% of
studies were based in America, 32% Europe, 2% rest of the world
@#$%^&*()_
25. What is free will?: The ability to make a choice between certain behaviours. Sense
of personal responsibility.
1. What is universality?: Any underlying characteristic of human beings that is capable
of being applied to all, despite differences @#$%^&*()_
of experience and upbringing
2. What is gender bias?: One gender is treated in more or less favourable ways, based on
gender stereotypes rather than real reasons
3. What do alpha-biased theories do?: exaggerate differences between men and women
4. What do beta-biased theories do?: ignore or minimize differences between men and
women and/or exaggerate the similarities
5. What is androcentrism?: the idea that the male thinking and behaviours are 'normal'
and 'standard' whilst female thinking and behaviours are 'abnormal,' as there's a lack of
research focussed on female participants as their differences to men have been
minimised
6. What is gynocentrism?: the female thinking and behaviour are 'normal' whilst male
thinking and behaviour is 'abnormal'
7. What are 3 examples of beta-biased, in the year 12 spec?: Asch: only focussed on the male
sample, but generalised to the whole population
Zimbardo: investigated social roles, but only used males
Biological research into fight or flight response has only been carried out on males as they
have less hormone variation in hormone levels.
8. What is a weakness of gender biased studies?: There have been some differences
between men and women taken as fact, which have since been proven false. Maccoby and
Jacklin found girls had superior verbal ability, whereas boys have superior spatial ability -
biological facts. Since this, Joel at al used brain scanning and found no differences in brain
structure and processing according to sex
9. What is a strength of gender bias?: Some stereotypes are useful to explore, as they may be
proven/disproven in biological origin. Ingalhaliker at al found that the stereotype of
women being able to multitask better than men may have biological origin - women may
have better connections between the right and left hemisphere
10. What is a weakness of gender biased studies - sexism?: Can promote sexism. Male
researchers are more likely to have their work published, and studies which find evidence of
gender differences are more likely to appear in journal articles than those that do not.
Nicolson labels female ppts as: unreasonable, irrational, and unable to complete complex
, AQA A LEVEL PSYCHOLOGY PAPER 3 ISSUES & OPTIONS
tasks in lab experiments
11. What is a strength of gender bias - practical applications?: Awareness means that
current researchers are much more careful when designing studies and developing theories.
@#$%^&*()_
Worrell and Remer developed criteria aiming to avoid gender bias in research such as
women being studied within meaningful, real-life contexts
12. What is cultural bias?: The tendency to judge people in terms of one's own cultural
assumptions.
, AQA A LEVEL PSYCHOLOGY PAPER 3 ISSUES & OPTIONS
13. What is the emic approach?: The investigation of a culture from within the culture
itself. More likely to have high ecological validity,
@#$%^&*()_as findings are less likely to be
distorted or caused by a mismatch between the researcher and study's groundings.
14. What is the etic approach?: a theoretical idea, assumed to apply to all cultures. Etic
constructs are considered universal.
15. What are imposed etics?: Where a construct from one culture is applied
inappropriately to another
16. What is ethnocentrism?: When a researcher assumes their own culturally specific
practices or ideas are 'natural' or 'right.'
17. What is cultural relativism?: Behaviour, norms and values can only be properly
understood if the cultural context is taken into consideration.
18. How does Ainsworth's strange situation show culture bias?: This shows imposed etic
as it assumes all cultures are the same regarding attachment, and generalises to the whole
population, when it was only conducted on American pairs (also, ethnocentrism)
19. How does Asch's study show culture bias?: Conducted on 123 White Amer- icans -
imposed etic
20. How does classification of ideal mental health suffer from culture bias?: - Jahoda
classified IMH using a 6-point list. This was ethnocentric, as the points were based on a
western viewpoint, stressing personal autonomy. Collective/Individual societies.
21. What is an example of a weakness of cultural bias - oppression?: Nobles argues
western psychology has been a tool of oppression and dominance. The US army used IQ
test before WWI which was culturally biased toward white majority. The test showed
African Americans were at the bottom of the IQ scale.
22. What is an example of strength of culture bias?: Indigenous psychologies is the
development of different groups of theories in different countries. For eg - Afrocentrism
- because all black people have roots in Africa, theories about them must recognise
African context.
23. What is another weakness of culture bias - overstated?: Takano and Osaka found 14 out
of 15 studies comparing the USA and Japan found no evidence of distinction between
individualism and collectivism - we are becoming more and more culturally similar. Need to
be cautious of alpha-bias.
, AQA A LEVEL PSYCHOLOGY PAPER 3 ISSUES & OPTIONS
24. What is a strength of acknowledging cultural bias?: Shows there is a need for greater
variety of cultures to study. Smith and Bond found that, in European textbooks, 66% of
studies were based in America, 32% Europe, 2% rest of the world
@#$%^&*()_
25. What is free will?: The ability to make a choice between certain behaviours. Sense
of personal responsibility.
