Gender bias Flashcards
What is universality?
The ability for research findings to be applied to all people, regardless of gender or culture. We must believe that some behaviours are the same for all cultures, and theories should be equally applicable to all genders.
What is gender bias?
When a bias is made towards one gender and then the behaviour is applied to the other gender. This is mainly caused by using a sample of a single gender in research.
What is androcentrism?
Theories which are centred on males. This can occur if all male samples are used in research and then a theory is generated from this research which is then applied to both genders. It assumes that male behaviour is the norm.
What is gynocentrism?
Theories which are centred on females. Since 70% of modern psychology students are female, research may have a bias in favour of females.
What is alpha bias?
This refers to the exaggeration of the differences between men and women eg: Freud and Geiger
What is the effect of alpha bias?
Stressing differences between genders may have the knock - on impact of minimising the differences of individuals of the same gender, and misses the ways in which we are similar despite gender.
What is beta bias?
Refers to the tendency to minimise differences between men and women and assume they are the same. It assumes that insights derived from the study of men will apply equally well to women eg: Milgram, Asch and Zimbardo
What is the effect of beta bias?
It can often lead to alpha bias as by creating a theory using only research with male participants, it is likely gender differences will be found if you use the theory to explain female behaviours. However, these differences may merely reflect the fact that women were not studied so it was never a full theory of human behaviour.
How can psychologists avoid gender bias?
Use an equal number of male and female participants
GENDER BIAS - significant theories of human behaviour have been built on androcentric research
These have been used to test women using flawed criteria
EG: When diagnosed by male psychologists, the gender of female patient seems to inform the diagnosis, not the symptoms
Androcentric research less useful as it can only be applied to half the population.
Therefore psychology as a field may have some significant biases
GENDER BIAS - research into beta bias shows that we should not minimise differences between men and women
Hare Mustin and Marecek suggest that arguing equality between men and women draws attention away from the current power imbalance and may inadvertently lead to even greater imbalances eg: it ignores the biological demands of pregnancy
We have to be mindful not to impact female negatively.
Means that beta bias approaches can be as damaging as alpha based ones
GENDER BIAS - this has led to psychologists to challenge potential gender biases in well established psychological theories
DNA evidence suggests that women are equally competitive and aggressive in situations where they need to be. This contradicts the Darwinian view that males are competitive whereas females are more passive. This shows that Darwin may have been influenced by Victorian times. Many theories we assume to be unbiased and scientific may have gender bias.
