Have you ever encountered a disagreement between psychologists regarding understanding the mind? Like many other scientific fields, psychology is constantly evolving, and so are discussions about critical issues and debates in significant areas of knowledge. Some debates have been going on for decades, while others are more recent. Let us take a look at the most notable current debates in psychology.
Fig. 1 - Psychology is a vast subject and thus comprises many debates.
Current Debates in Psychology
Since its establishment as a distinct discipline, psychology has evolved and developed with each new discovery. Today, it is a diverse subject that covers a wide range of topics and deals with many areas of daily life.
Current Debates in Psychology: Meaning
Psychology strives to be inclusive by considering individual differences, gender, race, mental health, and disabilities, to name a few. Current revolutions in psychology have led to debates and disagreements in the scientific community, especially concerning the validity and reliability of older research and problems of modern-day living situations. These disagreements include the issues and debates currently being discussed in psychology today.
Discussions in psychology often revolve around issues and debates arising from contemporary problems created by industrialisation and the development of society.
Contemporary Debate Topics
Contemporary psychology debates often consider society's industrialisation as one of the main factors affecting psychological health today. This is one factor that has driven the development of psychology. One example is the emergence of new approaches, such as the use of neuroscience and positive psychology.
Some of the more notable topics include:
Ethics of neuroscience examines ethical issues in neuroscience.
Neuroscience studies the brain using advanced imaging techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging and positron emission tomography.
The mother as the primary caregiver of an infant:
In the past, a caregiver was always assumed to be the mother/a female. However, times have since changed. Men are increasingly taking on the role of caregiver, or sometimes the role of caregiver is shared between partners. This debate is primarily about Freud and Bowlby and the impact of the absence of a mother figure on a child’s development.
Fig. 2 - Contemporary debate topics include the ethics of neuroscience, caregivers, and positive psychology, to name a few.
Contemporary Debates in Topics – Ethics of Neuroscience
Psychologists have created a field in psychology called neuroethics. Neuroethics aims to determine neuroscience research's ethical, legal, and societal implications.
Contemporary Debates Examples
Some of the ethical issues in neuroscience include:
Invasiveness (psychological/physical harm): with advances in neuroimaging techniques, psychological research can be tested using less invasive methods (autopsies were very invasive but provided detailed information, whereas computed tomography scans (CT) are non-invasive and provide detailed information but present problems with radiation exposure, even if minimal).
Developed treatments: neuroscience tends to focus on biological treatments for disorders, leading to problems if the treatments have undesirable side effects. For example, people with depression take SSRIs, which have been associated with higher suicide rates when first taken.
Impact on society: the punishment of offenders and the way they are judged based on neuroscience research have impacted outcomes in society. One example is Raine et al. (1997).
However, the major ethical principles of psychology remain. These ethics are standards in psychology created to ensure participants' safety and preserve ethical rights in research. These include:
Confidentiality: Participants’ personal information must remain confidential. Researchers typically maintain this by keeping data secure and not mentioning participant details in reports.
Deception/manipulation in research: Although this usually occurs in research, researchers must inform participants of the true aims and hypotheses of the research at the end of the study.
Right to withdraw: Participants must have the right to withdraw from the study at any point if they wish to do so.
Participants must not be harmed psychologically or physically.
Informed consent: Before deciding whether a participant wants to participate in the study, the researcher must inform the participant of participation's potential risks and benefits.
These are questions researchers face in every scientific adventure they embark on.
Social Policies and Application of Neuroscientific Research
Neuroscience research has been applied to practice and social policy to improve the quality and duration of life. Neuroscience has also been applied to the legal system. For example, research has been conducted to determine differences in brain activation among offenders, as in Raine et al. (1997), demonstrating the importance and usefulness of neuroscience research.
Contemporary Debates Examples
Examples of how neuroscience research is applied to contemporary society are in clinical settings, businesses, the workplace, the legal system, and in creating social policies to prevent crime or help migrants integrate into society.
Controversial Debates in Psychology
Two controversial debates in psychology are:
The mother as the infant’s primary caregiver.
The use of conditioning techniques to control children’s behaviour
Mother as an infant’s primary caregiver is a controversial debate in psychology. Research examining attachment styles between caregivers and infants assumes the mother is the caregiver.
In a meta-analysis, Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg (1988) examined cross-cultural differences in attachment styles. One of the inclusion criteria for the study was that the research should examine attachment styles between mother and infant.
However, women are usually employed nowadays, and partners share parental/caregiving responsibilities. According to Bowlby, the mother is indispensable for the child's healthy development. So will it harm child-rearing if the mother is no longer present? This debate is about whether assertions like Bowlby's are credible and what impact such assumptions have on women.
The use of conditioning techniques to control behaviour in children is another controversial topic in psychology. Some people argue the use of conditioning techniques to control children's behaviour has benefits, such as:
Others argue that it is detrimental:
Therefore, it is controversial whether this technique should be used. Many also wonder if it is not simply the child’s response to ‘bribery’ and if they are being conditioned.
Contemporary Debates in Psychology – Reliability of Eye-Witness Testimony
The reliability of eyewitness testimony is an ongoing debate in psychology. Eyewitness testimony has often been used to incarcerate people, showing how important eyewitness testimony is. If they are inaccurate, it can lead to the wrong person being punished.
Psychological research has found that the following factors can affect the accuracy of eyewitness testimony:
- Time of the incident
- Anxiety levels at the time of the incident
- Age of the eyewitness.
Children are young, impressionable, and have great imaginations. All of these can affect the accuracy of eyewitness testimony. For this reason, the justice system must be cautious when taking eyewitness testimony from children.Some courts have found that some testimony can be steered in a particular direction by cleverly worded words and questions. Memories can be fickle...
Fig. 3 - Are eyewitness testimonies reliable?
Contemporary Debates in Psychology – Positive Psychology
Positive psychology was launched in 1988. The discipline is a controversial topic within psychology because psychologists created it as a reaction to disagreements about psychology’s focus on mental health and negative thoughts and behaviours.
As a new discipline in psychology has emerged, so have the questions and debates about positive psychology.
Some examples of these issues and debates are:
- How useful is positive psychology?
- Other approaches in psychology argue positive psychology overemphasises the importance of understanding behaviour in terms of positive emotions, thoughts, and behaviour. The approach does this while ignoring important factors, such as the negative ones, which is why it can be considered reductionist.
- Research in the field of positive psychology has shown the topic’s relevance.
- Seligman (an important figure in positive psychology) proposed a curriculum that encourages students to develop valued skills and strengths. It introduces the measurement of behaviour and well-being and helps students engage in learning to increase their chances of doing well in school.
- Ethical, social, and economic implications
- Positive psychology has shown that happier people tend to perform better at work. Therefore, this can have better ethical, social and economic implications for individuals and society:
- Ethical – the company has an obligation to workers to ensure that workers feel comfortable and safe at work
- Social – peoples moods may improve as a result, which can positively impact their social lives
- Economic – better worker performance is likely to make the company better off financially.
Current Debates in Psychology - Key takeaways
- Current psychology debates blame society's industrialisation for the problems many of us face today. This is one factor that has driven the development of psychology. An example of this is the emergence of new approaches, such as the use of neuroscience and positive psychology.
- Overall, we differentiate five key debates: the ethics of neuroscience, the mother as the primary caregiver of an infant, using conditioning techniques to control the behaviour of children, reliability of eyewitness testimony (including children), and the relevance of positive psychology in today’s society.
- Two controversial psychological debates are the mother as an infant’s primary caregiver and the use of conditioning techniques to control children's behaviour.
- The reliability of eyewitness testimony is an ongoing debate in psychology. Eyewitness testimony has often been used to incarcerate people, showing how important eyewitness testimony is. If they are inaccurate, it can lead to the wrong person being punished.
- Positive psychology originated in 1988. The discipline itself is a controversial topic within psychology itself. It arose as a reaction by psychologists to disagreements about psychology’s focus on mental health and negative thoughts and behaviours.
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