Issues & Debates

In Freud's psychoanalytic theory, behaviour was often explained largely in terms of male development (e.g. the Oedipus complex), with female development described as a deviation from the male norm. This is an example of which form of bias?

• ABeta bias
• BAndrocentrism✓
• CEthnocentrism
• DImposed etic

Answer: Taking male behaviour as the standard or norm against which female behaviour is judged (and often seen as inferior or deviant) is androcentrism, a form of gender bias. Ethnocentrism and imposed etic concern culture bias, not gender.

A theory minimises or ignores genuine differences between men and women, assuming findings from one sex apply equally to the other. Which type of gender bias is this?

• AAlpha bias
• BAndrocentrism
• CBeta bias✓
• DGynocentrism

Answer: Beta bias minimises or ignores real differences between the sexes, often by assuming findings from one sex (frequently males) apply to all. Alpha bias is the opposite: it exaggerates differences between the sexes.

A Western-developed intelligence test is used to assess people in a non-Western culture, and their lower scores are interpreted as genuinely lower intelligence. This best illustrates which problem?

• AAn imposed etic leading to ethnocentric conclusions✓
• BAn emic approach
• CBeta bias
• DCultural relativism

Answer: Applying a technique or theory designed in one culture to another while assuming it is universal is an imposed etic; judging the other culture as inferior by the home culture's standards is ethnocentrism. Cultural relativism and the emic approach would, by contrast, study behaviour within its own cultural context.

Which statement best characterises 'soft determinism' as applied in psychology?

• AAll behaviour is entirely determined by external forces with no role for choice
• BBehaviour is entirely the product of free will
• CBehaviour is determined only by unconscious biological drives
• DBehaviour is determined by internal and external factors but people can still exercise conscious choice within those constraints✓

Answer: Soft determinism (associated with James) holds that behaviour has causes but people can still exercise free, conscious choice within those constraints, reconciling determinism with a degree of free will. Hard determinism denies any free will at all.

A psychologist claims that intelligence is best understood as an interaction between inherited potential and environmental experience, rather than as the product of one or the other. Which concept does this most clearly reflect?

• AThe diathesis-stress version of the nature-nurture interaction✓
• BHard environmental determinism
• CPure nativism
• DReductionism

Answer: The modern nature-nurture debate emphasises interaction: behaviour arises from the interplay of genetic predisposition (nature) and experience (nurture), as captured in the diathesis-stress framework. Pure nativism (nature only) and environmental determinism (nurture only) reject this interactionist view.

A researcher argues that complex human memory cannot be fully understood by studying it only as isolated stores and processes, and that the whole experience is greater than the sum of its parts. Which position is being expressed?

• AReductionism
• BHolism✓
• CNomothetic approach
• DEnvironmental determinism

Answer: Arguing that a phenomenon should be studied as an integrated whole, because it is more than the sum of its component parts, is holism (associated with the Gestalt/humanistic traditions). Reductionism would break the behaviour down into its simplest constituent parts.

Which pairing of approach with its position on the idiographic-nomothetic debate is correct?

• AThe humanistic approach is nomothetic; the behaviourist approach is idiographic
• BThe idiographic approach seeks universal laws; the nomothetic approach studies the individual
• CHumanistic and psychodynamic case studies tend to be idiographic; behaviourist and biological approaches tend to be nomothetic✓
• DBoth the biological and humanistic approaches are idiographic

Answer: Idiographic approaches study the unique individual in depth (e.g. humanistic, Freud's case studies); nomothetic approaches seek general laws by studying large samples (e.g. behaviourist, biological). Option B reverses the definitions.

Research suggesting a genetic basis for criminality is described as 'socially sensitive'. Which consideration best explains why?

• AIt uses only qualitative data, which cannot be generalised
• BIt cannot be peer reviewed because the topic is controversial
• CIt always breaches confidentiality
• DIts findings could have significant real-world consequences for participants or the groups they represent, such as discrimination or policy misuse✓

Answer: Socially sensitive research has potential consequences or implications, directly for participants or for the wider group they represent. Findings on a genetic basis for criminality could be misused to justify discrimination or coercive policy, which is the core ethical implication.