, Paper 3: Section A: Issues and Debates
Gender bias Alpha bias → exaggerates differences between sexes - Negative impact on women: autism
● Sexual selection theory ● Men to women ratio: 10:1 - because studies were
carried out on men
Beta bias → mimises differences between sexes ● Girls may be better at hiding symptoms
● Asch line study - 123 males
- Publication bias: (Formanowicz et al. 2018): metanalysis
Androcentricism → dominated by the male viewpoint of 1000+ articles found studies on gender bias less
funded
Universality → any underlying characteristic of
human beings that is capable of being applied to all - Promotes sexism in research process: women remain
underrepresented - sexist expectations may mean female
ppts underperform
,Cultural bias Culture → values, beliefs, patterns of behaviour - Most influential studies are culturally biased: Asch,
shared Milgram - all individualist cultures
Cultural bias → tendency to judge people in terms of - Stereotyping: researcher bias
one’s own cultural assumptions, ignoring effects of
cultural differences + Cultural psychology: comparing cultures allows us
to see how different contexts shape psychology →
Most likely to be studied: Westernised, Educated, deeper understanding of human diversity
Industrialised, Rich, Democraies
Ethnocentrism → belief in superiority of one’s own
culture (leads to prejudice)
● Definitions of abnormality
Cultural relativism → behaviour can only be properly
understood in the context of the culture in which it
occurs
● Meaning of intelligence different in different cultures
Emic approach: looks at behaviour from inside culture,
specific to that culture
Etic approach: looks at behaviour from outside culture,
claims universality
→ Imposed etic: arguing findings are universal but
they actually came from emic research
● Ainworth’s Strange Situation
, Free will and determinism Free will → humans play active role and have choice + Practical application: Roberts et al.: Adolescents who
in how they behave believed in fatalism prone to depression (internal locus of
Determinism → behaviour is beyond our control control = healthier)
● Soft: constrained by environment/biology but only to
an extent + Scientific: hard determinism links to cause and effect
● Hard: forces outside control shape behaviour
● Biological: external forces outside from the intidivual - Hard determinism is inconsistent with the law and legal
● Environmental: result of environment they are principle of moral responsibility
exposed to
● Psychic: result of childhood experiences
Deterministic explanations rooted in science due to cause
and effect
The nature-nurture debate Debate: contribution of these influences in explaining + Rhee and Waldman (2002: meta-analysis of adoption
behaviour studies found genetic influences account for 41% of
variance in aggression
Nature → genetics (nativists believe behaviour
caused by genes) + Susser and Lin: pregant women during the Dutch Hunger
● SZ genetic basis Winter in WW2 had low weight babies and were x2 likely
to develop SZ (EPIGENETICS)
Nurture → environmental factors (empiricists believe
brain born as tabula rasa - blank slate) + Practical application: genetic counselling for OCD
● Observational learning of phobias (understanding likelihood and how to prevent
development)
Interactionism → nature and nurture are linked and
interact with each other - Implications: extreme nativism leads to eugenic policies,
● Diathesis-Stress model: genetic predisposition + extreme empiricism can lead to behaviour shaping and
environmental stressors = depressive reaction social control through conditioning
Epigenetics → study of how environment affects how
genes work
Gender bias Alpha bias → exaggerates differences between sexes - Negative impact on women: autism
● Sexual selection theory ● Men to women ratio: 10:1 - because studies were
carried out on men
Beta bias → mimises differences between sexes ● Girls may be better at hiding symptoms
● Asch line study - 123 males
- Publication bias: (Formanowicz et al. 2018): metanalysis
Androcentricism → dominated by the male viewpoint of 1000+ articles found studies on gender bias less
funded
Universality → any underlying characteristic of
human beings that is capable of being applied to all - Promotes sexism in research process: women remain
underrepresented - sexist expectations may mean female
ppts underperform
,Cultural bias Culture → values, beliefs, patterns of behaviour - Most influential studies are culturally biased: Asch,
shared Milgram - all individualist cultures
Cultural bias → tendency to judge people in terms of - Stereotyping: researcher bias
one’s own cultural assumptions, ignoring effects of
cultural differences + Cultural psychology: comparing cultures allows us
to see how different contexts shape psychology →
Most likely to be studied: Westernised, Educated, deeper understanding of human diversity
Industrialised, Rich, Democraies
Ethnocentrism → belief in superiority of one’s own
culture (leads to prejudice)
● Definitions of abnormality
Cultural relativism → behaviour can only be properly
understood in the context of the culture in which it
occurs
● Meaning of intelligence different in different cultures
Emic approach: looks at behaviour from inside culture,
specific to that culture
Etic approach: looks at behaviour from outside culture,
claims universality
→ Imposed etic: arguing findings are universal but
they actually came from emic research
● Ainworth’s Strange Situation
, Free will and determinism Free will → humans play active role and have choice + Practical application: Roberts et al.: Adolescents who
in how they behave believed in fatalism prone to depression (internal locus of
Determinism → behaviour is beyond our control control = healthier)
● Soft: constrained by environment/biology but only to
an extent + Scientific: hard determinism links to cause and effect
● Hard: forces outside control shape behaviour
● Biological: external forces outside from the intidivual - Hard determinism is inconsistent with the law and legal
● Environmental: result of environment they are principle of moral responsibility
exposed to
● Psychic: result of childhood experiences
Deterministic explanations rooted in science due to cause
and effect
The nature-nurture debate Debate: contribution of these influences in explaining + Rhee and Waldman (2002: meta-analysis of adoption
behaviour studies found genetic influences account for 41% of
variance in aggression
Nature → genetics (nativists believe behaviour
caused by genes) + Susser and Lin: pregant women during the Dutch Hunger
● SZ genetic basis Winter in WW2 had low weight babies and were x2 likely
to develop SZ (EPIGENETICS)
Nurture → environmental factors (empiricists believe
brain born as tabula rasa - blank slate) + Practical application: genetic counselling for OCD
● Observational learning of phobias (understanding likelihood and how to prevent
development)
Interactionism → nature and nurture are linked and
interact with each other - Implications: extreme nativism leads to eugenic policies,
● Diathesis-Stress model: genetic predisposition + extreme empiricism can lead to behaviour shaping and
environmental stressors = depressive reaction social control through conditioning
Epigenetics → study of how environment affects how
genes work
