Gender bias

Question 1

What is universality?

Answer 1

All behaviors can be applied to all people of all cultures

Question 2

What is Alpha bias?

Answer 2

Research that exaggerates difference

Question 2

How does bias undermine universality?

Answer 2

Psychologists hold beliefs and values that may be influenced by their social and historical context
- beliefs may be biased and have subjective viewpoints
- bias in the field may be inevitable

Question 3

What can these differences in alpha bias do in research?

Answer 3

Heighten or devalue the value of women in relation to men

Question 4

What’s an example of women’s value being heightened?

Answer 4

• Chodorow suggested mothers and daughters have a closer relationship than mothers and sons
• Women develop better abilities to bond and emphasize with others

Question 5

What’s an example of women being devalued?

Answer 5

• Freud’s theory of psychosexual development
• Phallic stage: boys and girls develop a desire for their opposite gender parent
• Creates castration anxiety: resolved when boy identifies with father
• A girls identification with mother weaker = weaker superego

Question 6

What is beta bias?

Answer 6

Research that ignores or underestimates differences

Question 7

When does beta bias happen?

Answer 7

Happens when we assume that findings apply equally to men and women

Question 8

What’s an example of beta bias in fight or flight research?

Answer 8

Usually uses male animals due to female behavior being affected by hormonal changes during ovulation
- ignores any possible differences
- Early research suggests no difference in male/female reaction to a threat

Question 9

What’s an example in research that disapproves of beta bias?

Answer 9

Taylor et al suggests a ‘tend and best friend’ response
- ‘Oxytocin’ levels higher in women
- Women respond to stress by increasing oxytocin
- Reduces fight or flight response
- Enhances tend or befriend (looking after others)
- Research that minimizes gender differences may result in a misrepresentation of women’s behavior

Question 10

How about beta bias in attachment research?

Answer 10

Suggests that emotional care is solely provided by mothers
- means men were misrepresented

Question 11

What is androcentrism?

Answer 11

• prioritizing male perspectives, experiences and values

Question 12

What is alpha and beta bias a result of?

Answer 12

androcentrism

Question 13

How is psychology androcentric?

Answer 13

Psych presents a male dominated version of the world
- American psych association published 100 most influential psych
- only 6 were female
- Psych: a subject produced by men, for men and about men

Question 14

How has androcentrism in psych affected women?

Answer 14

Women’s behavior misunderstood or taken as a sign of illness
- feminists object to diagnostic category of ‘premenstrual syndrome’ > medicalizes women’s emotion such as anger
- Men’s anger often seen as a rational response to external pressures

Question 15

Who was mentioned in non-fixed gender difference as a limitation?

Answer 15

• Maccoby and Jacklin - presented findings of many gender studies
• Joel et al - brain scans

Question 15

What did Maccoby and Jacklin find?

Answer 15

• studies concluded girls have superior verbal ability and boys have superior spatial ability
• suggested that these differences were ‘hard wired’
• Findings published and seen as fact

Question 16

What did Joel et al do?

Answer 16

Used brain scans and found no such thing in relation to Maccoby and Jacklin’s findings
- some research presented as biological facts when its simply a social stereotype

Question 17

Why is gender bias research promoting sexism a limitation?

Answer 17

Women underrepresented in uni departments
- undergrad intake mainly female in psych
- Lecturers more likely to be male
- research more likely to be conducted by males

Question 18

What did Nicolson suggest in relation to gender bias promoting sexism?

Answer 18

• Suggested women are irrational and unable to complete complex tasks
• means women may underperform in studies
• means the structure pf uni may produce gender biased findings

Question 19

Why is gender bias research not being published a limitation?

Answer 19

• Formanowicz et al analyzed 1000 articles related to gender bias
• Found that gender bias research funded less often
• Published in less prestigious journals
• Fewer scholars become aware of it
• suggests gender bias research not taken as seriously

Question 20

What are strengths of gender bias?

Answer 20

• Shouldn’t avoid gender differences
• some studies suggest women are better at multitasking
• may have some biological truth
• women’s brain seem to have a better connection between hemispheres
• Suggests some biological differences between men and women