Gender Bias Flashcards
What is Gender Bias in Psychology?
Bias = tendency to treat one individual or group in a different way from others - psychology research or theory may offer a view that does not justifiably represent the experience + behaviour of men or women (usually women).
What is Andocentrism?
-Psychology = mostly been male-dominated.
-Almost all psychologists were men, theories therefore tend to represent a male-world view.
-Can result in alpha or beta bias, leads to females being misunderstood if deviates from what counts as normal drawn from research - female behaviour is ‘abnormal’ or ‘inferior’, or a sign of a psychological disorder.
What is Universality?
Ultimate aim of psychology = research to produce universal theories (can be applied to all groups)
In this case, males and females.
If any bias exists then it cannot claim universality.
What is Alpha Bias?
Research tends to emphasise or over-exaggerate differences between genders, to suggest that one gender is superior to the other.
What is an example of Alpha Bias?
Sigmund Freud:
-Reflects culture he lived in, 19th c men = superior.
-Psychoanalysis - viewed femininity as failed masculinity, claiming females were inferior to males due to penis envy.
-Women don’t undergo the Oepedius Complex so Superego doesn’t develop as strongly as males = morally inferior as have weaker identification with mother.
-Freud exaggerated the difference between men and women.
What is Beta Bias?
Ignores, minimises or underestimates differences between men and women - often female participants aren not included as part of process and then it is assumed that research findings apply equally to both genders.
What is an example of Beta Bias?
Research into Fight-or-Flight response:
-early research based exclusively on male animals as female hormones tend to fluctuate so more difficult to study.
-Findings used to make universal claims about the stress-response in both males and females.
-Taylor et al (2000) challenged this, providing evidence that females produce a tendency to-and-befriend response which is adaptive because it ensures the survival of their offspring.
-Ignores possibility of a gender difference meant female behaviour went undiscovered and stress response not fully understood.
What is a strength of Gender Bias in Psychology?
Positive implications - reflexivity:
-modern researchers beginning to recognise effect of own values and assumptions on their work.
-rather than see bias as threatening, they embrace it as a crucial + critical aspect of research, e.g. study into lack of women in executive positions in accountancy firms (Dambrin + Lambert 2008) include reflection on how their own gender-related experiences influence their reading events.
Important development and may lead to greater awareness of the role personal biases has in shaping research.
What are 2 limitations of gender bias in psychology?
Problems with sexism in research process:
-lack of women appointed at senior level means female concerns may not be reflected in research.
-males are more likely to have work published and studies with evidence of gender differences more likely to appear in journal articles than those that do not.
-lab experiments further disadvantage women as placed in inequitable relationship with male researcher who has power to label them unreasonable, irrational and unable to complete tasks.
Means psychology may be guilty of supporting a form of institutional sexism, creating bias in research.
Negative implications - discrimination:
-may create misleading assumptions about female behaviour, fail to challenge negative stereo and validate discriminatory practices.
-may provide ‘scientific justification’ to deny women opportunities within workplace or wider society.
-where men set standards of normalcy, becomes normal for women to feel abnormal.
Not just a methodological problem but may have damaging concequences on women in terms of misdiagnosis due to male misinterpretations.
What is a solution to gender bias?
A feminist perspective:
-feminist psychology aims to redress imbalances in theory and research.
-Judith Worrell proposed a criteria that should be adhered to..
-women should be studies in real life contexts, diversity within groups of women examined, any evidence which highlights a gender difference should be used to provide greater support for women.
Adopting this stance would help eradicate some of problems with gender bias and help researchers to produce a more balanced sensitive and ultimately objective and valid theory of human behaviour.
