Competition - post a photo you've taken of nature >>

Edexcel Psychology Unit 4 - Monday 17th June.

Scroll to see replies

Could someone please show me how you could plan a nature-nurture debate question

All I've planned on doing is
defining nature - extent to which abilities are present at birth
and nurture - influence of experiences and effect of the environment as we develop and grow. Includes nurture influences before birth if we take into account sounds we hear when inside the womb.

Then I'd go through each approach showing parts which are to do with nature and parts nurture. I think every approach has at least one aspect of both, for example the learning approach is mainly focused on nurture because it considers humans as being born as blank slates with all behaviour learnt etc, but slightly acknowledges nature in involuntary behaviour we may have such as fear. And cognitive focuses on information processing which is nature as everyone is born with it, but also considers nurture in the importance of cues etc.

Then an evaluation.
Most explanations involve an element of both when explaining any aspect of human behaviour. Reductionism makes it likely that either nature or nurture could be pinpointed as a cause separately, but holism doesn't. Twin studies are used to help uncover influences but no characteristic has been found to be 100% the same. Cross cultural research can help as if differences are found between cultures, the behaviour is likely down to nurture and vice versa. One debate is that nature and nurture simply cannot be separated for study whilst still studying meaningful human behaviour. The nomothetic view looks for general laws about behaviour which is hard to do without reducing it into parts so focuses on one or the other, and the idiographic view focuses on individual behaviour as a whole so includes both.

I really don't know if this is any good, I hope someone has already answered so I can see theirs, or if anyone has any suggestions?

Reply 81

gabriellatyson

Original post by Stressed-Student

How does contributions differ from key issues? This part is so confusing.

basically with a key issue the issue is phrased as a question e.g. Are transgender operations ethical? and you would discuss why this is controversial, argue both sides of the case and talk about why it is important. Whereas with a contribution to society it is more about how the research done by psychologists in the field is beneficial to society and is usually phrased as a statement e.g. reliability of eye-witness testimony. So your key issues and contributions may be similar for each approach but just looked at from a different angle.

Hope this helps sorry for rambling a bit! :smile:

Reply 82

krane

Is anyone else freaking out as much as me :frown:

never felt so unprepared for an exam!

Reply 83

Stressed-Student

Original post by gabriellatyson

Thanks, it makes a bit more sense. Was one of your key issues Are transgender operations ethical? I don't know much about that one.

Reply 84

gabriellatyson

Original post by Stressed-Student

Thanks, it makes a bit more sense. Was one of your key issues Are transgender operations ethical? I don't know much about that one.

Yes that was mine for the biological approach (just because you can make links with the money study, gender development etc) but we also looked at the benefits of of chemotherapy for the mentally ill which transfers nicely to a contribution to society

fingers crossed for a lovely paper! :s-smilie:

Reply 85

Stressed-Student

Original post by gabriellatyson

What do you know for the transgender key issue?

And I really hope it's a nice paper too.

Reply 86

chiny94

Original post by Riley F.

Could someone explain Ethical guidelines/considerations/problems with non-human participants please?

Regarding animals:

•

Experts should be used to administer drugs on animals - anesthetists

•

Studies must be supervised by a senior staff

•

Appropriate caging must be used for animals correct size

•

Suffering must be kept to minimal

•

No unnecessary number of animals should be used so only the minimum amount needed should be used

•

Having time between experiments to allow the animals to recover

In order to experiments with animals, the researcher must hold a license from the Home Office.

A decision cube is used when considering whether or not the experiment is worth carrying out which tests out:

•

What benefits there are to societ, are the findings likely to have benefits to humans or animals?

•

What costs there are of the study, in terms of pain and suffering

•

A rating one the scientific quality of the study - will its findings be based on sounds scientific methodology?

Ethical advantages for using animals

•

Procedures can be carried out on animals that could not be carried out on humans e.g. lesions and ablations, to reveal the function of different parts of the brain

•

Removal of monkeys from their mothers (Harlow)

•

Drugs have been developed that would not have without the use of animal studies - and Ryder (1973) suggested humans should do everything to improve their own qualities of their lives, this is called pro-speciesism

•

Some studies found that animals studies do not cause suffering in animals: Grey (1987) saw that rat starvation did not distress the rats, once a day feeding seemed sufficient for them

Ethical disadvantages for using animals

•

Animals are likely to be stressed by experiments as they are confined more than usual, and are likely to be in an unfamiliar environment or specifically bred for experimental use

•

Singer (1976) suggests thoguh that humans are also animals, so speciesism is like racism.

Practical advantages for using animals

•

Animals are generally easy to handle and to manage e.g. when needing to administer drugs at regular intervals, control diet or environment

•

It is useful to be able to study more than one generation in a short time, which is possibloe in animals with short gestations periods, but not in humans

Practical disadvantages for using animals

•

Animals are not identical to humans. Although their nervous systems are quite similar such as brain strucuture, they do not share important characteristics such as our cognition systems, so ther is a problem generalising findings to humans

•

Animal studies often isolate one variable to study but this does not reflect the complexity of human life, so a more holistic view is required

Again, I used Psychology101 site to write this btw

Reply 87

chiny94

PLEASE REMEMBER THAT WE ARE NOT ALLOWED TO DISCUSS THIS EXAM UNTIL MIDNIGHT TOMORROW SINCE THIS IS AN EDEXCEL EXAM

It's just apparently it's an international board and people in other countries might be taking the test at different time :L Otherwise, we'll get warnings!

Reply 88

Riley F.

Thanks chiny94. Also, how are you guys going about planning practicals/experiments?

Reply 89

akspop

can someone answer this question please?
compare 5 approaches according to their scientific content and methods.
thanks.

Reply 90

Chocre

Original post by chiny94

Yeah true! I think I will attempt the longer ones first for definite now haha and I resat unit 3 too!! I nearly ran out of time I mean technically I did since I rushed things a bit :/ but ah well hopefully I've done better than January! :smile:

That's what my teachers always said is the best way to do the paper :smile:

yeah I was exactly the same, I spent waay too long on the essays an ended up having about 20 minutes for each section!! Found it a very stressful exam! :rolleyes:

Although the questions weren't too bad, but it had so much on research methods! Hoping the paper will be nice tomorrow to make up for it :s-smilie:

Reply 91

gabriellatyson

Original post by Stressed-Student

What do you know for the transgender key issue?

And I really hope it's a nice paper too.

I have included a pic of my mind map branch for it hope you can understand/read it! ImageUploadedByStudent Room1371409989.148450.jpg

Posted from TSR Mobile

Reply 92

akspop

can someone answer these questions please?
compare 5 approaches according to their scientific content and methods
Reductionism vs Holoism
thanks.

Reply 93

benjsd

Original post by akspop

can someone answer this question please?
compare 5 approaches according to their scientific content and methods.
thanks.

couldnt answer it all here but ill give you my plan if this comes up.

-first discuss what makes something scientific: the hypothetico-deductive model (theory -> prediction/hypothesis -> testing against reality -> amend/agree with theory), the idea of falsification (trying to disprove rather than prove something), reductionism vs holism (reducing variables to one vs taking all variables into account), what scientific methods are actually used (i.e. genetics, brain scanning - measurable methods) and the need for a paradigm (overall thought pattern behind something)
-second bring in each approach separately, discussing how they might be scientific and how they might not based on the above points (biological is, social is not, cognitive is close, learning is in some ways and psychodynamic is probably furthest away from having scientific content - also use research methods here to evaluate
-conclude drawing across all the perspectives, but ensuring to get the points in that biological has the most scientific content/methods

i personally think its unlikely they will ask you about all 5 of the approaches however

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 94

akspop

Original post by benjsd

couldnt answer it all here but ill give you my plan if this comes up.

-first discuss what makes something scientific: the hypothetico-deductive model (theory -> prediction/hypothesis -> testing against reality -> amend/agree with theory), the idea of falsification (trying to disprove rather than prove something), reductionism vs holism (reducing variables to one vs taking all variables into account), what scientific methods are actually used (i.e. genetics, brain scanning etc) and the need for a paradigm (overall thought pattern behind something)
-second bring in each approach separately, discussing how they might be scientific and how they might not based on the above points (biological is, social is not, cognitive is close, learning is in some ways and psychodynamic is probably furthest away from having scientific content - also use research methods here to evaluate
-conclude drawing across all the perspectives, but ensuring to get the points in that biological has the most scientific content/methods

i personally think its unlikely they will ask you about all 5 of the approaches however

Thanks for that, very helpful :smile:

seeing as your good at debate plans
reductionism vs holism? :tongue:

Reply 95

Stressed-Student

Original post by gabriellatyson

I have included a pic of my mind map branch for it hope you can understand/read it! ImageUploadedByStudent Room1371409989.148450.jpg

Posted from TSR Mobile

Thanks, I can read bits of it.

Reply 96

Chocre

I just thought does anyone know if we have to know all of our key issues in a lot of detail again?

Reply 97

1094

Original post by krane

Is anyone else freaking out as much as me :frown:

never felt so unprepared for an exam!

This is my worst exam. I am freaking out so badly, feel like im not going to be able to answer a single question :s-smilie:

Reply 98

benjsd

Original post by akspop

Thanks for that, very helpful :smile:

seeing as your good at debate plans
reductionism vs holism? :tongue:

science uses reductionism because it reduces variables down to a single factor (which allows conclusions to be drawn accurately because of there only being one factor influencing the difference), whereas holism looks at something as a whole - it argues that breaking things down into individual factors loses sight of the 'whole' (the brain is a good example to use here, scans generally look for specific areas - rather than the actual working of all the areas together)
as a whole psychology attempts to reduce the variables as much as possible (except Freud of course) - experiments are generally reductionist due to the manipulation of an IV, whereas case studies are holistic.