Gender Bias

Question 1

What is Gender Bias?

Answer 1

when one gender is treated less favourably than the other

Question 2

What are the consequences of Gender Bias?

Answer 2

Scientifically misleading
Upholding stereotypical assumptions
Validating sex discrimination

Question 3

What is ‘Universality’?

Answer 3

Any underlying characteristic of human beings that is capable of being applied to all, despite difference in time or Culture

Question 4

What are three main types of gender bias?

Answer 4

Alpha Bias
Beta Bias
Androcentrism

Question 5

Define: Alpha Bias.

Answer 5

when psychological research exaggerates or overestimates differences between the sexes

Question 6

What is the consequence of Alpha Bias?

Answer 6

stereotypically male and female characteristics may be emphasised, more likely to devalue females in relation to males

Question 7

What is a study that reflects the issues of Alpha Bias?

Answer 7

Wilson 1975:

• Survival efficiency
• Men need to procreate with bareeee gyaldem cuz its in their code to leave many offspring
• women are meant to protect the few offspring she has so doesn’t have time be promiscuous
• females who fool around too are said to be going against their ‘nature’
• thus exaggerating the differences

Question 8

Define: Beta Bias.

Answer 8

differences between men and women are minimised

Question 9

When does Beta Bias often happen?

Answer 9

findings obtained from men are applied to women without additional validation
women aren’t included as part of the research

Question 10

What is an example of Beta Bias?

Answer 10

Fight or flight response: research based on male animals. Shelley Taylor (2000) suggests women actually inhibit, and shift attention to tending of befriending.

Question 11

Define: Androcentrism.

Answer 11

taking male thinking/behaviour as normal, regarding female thinking/behaviour as deviant, interior, abnormal

Question 12

What does Androcentrism lead to?

Answer 12

female behaviour is misunderstood or pathologized (sign of psychological instability)

Question 13

What is an example of Androcentrism?

Answer 13

PMS - pre-menstrual syndrome:

• stereotypes and trivialises female experience
• it is a social construct that medicalises female emotions, while male anger is seen as a rational response to external pressures (Brescoll and Uhlman 2008)

Question 14

What are some positives of Alpha Bias?

Answer 14

Has led to some theorists (Gilligan) to assert the worth and valuation ‘feminine qualities’.

• Has led to healthy criticism of cultural values that praise certain ‘male’ qualities such as aggression and individualism as desirable, adaptive and universal.

Question 15

What are some positives of Beta Bias?

Answer 15

Makes people see men and women as the same, which has led to equal treatment in legal terms and equal access to, for example, education and employment.

Question 16

What are two negative consequences of Alpha Bias?

Answer 16

• Focus on differences between genders leads to the implication of similarity WITHIN genders, thus this ignores the many ways women differ from each other.
• Can sustain prejudices and stereotypes.

Question 17

What are two negative consequences of Beta Bias?

Answer 17

• Draws attention away from the differences in power between men and women.
• Is considered as an egalitarian approach but it results in major misrepresentations of both genders.

Question 18

What are are the three examples of Gender Bias in the Research Process?

Answer 18

Institutional Sexism
Use of Standardised Procedures
Dissemination of research results through academic journals

Question 19

How does Institutional sexism find its way into research?

Answer 19

• Although female psychology students outnumber male, at a seniour teaching and research level in universities, men dominate. Men predominate at seniour researcher level.
• Research agenda follows male concerns, female concerns may be marginalised or ignored

Question 20

How does the Use of standardised procedures feature in research studies?

Answer 20

• Most experimental methodologies are based around standardised treatment of participants. This assumes that men and women respond in the same ways to the experimental situation.
• Women and men might respond differently to research situation.
• Women and men might be treated differently by researchers.
• Could create artificial differences or mask real ones.

Question 21

How does the Dissemination of research results through academic journals find its way into research studies?

Answer 21

• Publishing bias towards positive results.
• Research that finds gender differences more likely to get published than that which doesn’t.
• Exaggerates extent of gender differences.

Question 22

How had Gender Bias been reduced in psychological research?

Answer 22

Equal opportunity legislation and feminist psychology have reduced institutionalised gender bias and drawn attention to sources of bias and under-researched areas in psychology like childcare, sexual abuse, dual burden working and prostitution.

Question 23

What are the five points of the Feminist Perspective?

Answer 23

• Re-examining the ‘facts’ about gender.
• View of women as normal humans, not deficient men.
• Skepticism towards biological determinism.
• Research agenda focusing on women’s’ concerns.
• A psychology for women, rather than a psychology of women.