Critically Discuss the Claim That ‘the Diversity of Perspectives in Psychology Is an Obstacle to Understanding’ Drawing on Material from at Least Two Chapters of Book 2.

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Psychology is a diverse and multi perspective subject which looks at human behaviour and experiences. The diversity of psychology cannot be regarded as an obstacle to understanding because psychology needs to be studied in various perspectives and each perspective has a different object of knowledge and the methods used to collect their evidence is different, which causes the perspectives to conflict, co-exist or complement each other. This essay aims to look at various perspectives in using the studies of sex and gender as well as language and meaning to conclude that the various perspectives in psychology are not a barrier to understanding. There are some benefits in studying a psychology topic from various perspectives because it allows us to ask different questions and use different methods on a similar topic to obtain different results. The object of knowledge in the study of sex and gender from a biological perspective is concerned with the differences between men and women at the level of hormones, brain structure and genetic inheritance. This differs from the social constructionist perspective which is concerned with the social and cultural context of how sex and gender affect our lives and argues that biological sex is not crucial to explaining what it is to be male or female. Social constructionists believe that gender is one of the most powerful categories that people use to define themselves and that male and female discourses are socially produced through interaction, media and social relationships. This shows us that these two perspectives are in contrast with each other and their principles and objects of knowledge directly oppose each other. (Holloway et al. 2007) The evolutionary psychology perspective is concerned with development of humans through sexual selection and the functions and behaviours that led to successful sexual selection.

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