Gender bias

Question 1

What is gender bias?

Answer 1

Gender bias is when one gender is treated less favourably than the other, often referred to as sexism

Question 2

What are a range of consequences from gender bias?

Answer 2

Scientifically misleading
Upholding stereotypical assumptions
Validating sex discrimination

Question 3

What does avoiding gender bias not mean?

Answer 3

Pretending women and men are the same

Question 4

What are the three types of gender bias?

Answer 4

Alpha bias
Beta bias
Androcentrism

Question 5

When does alpha bias occur?

Answer 5

When differences between men and women are exaggerated

Question 6

What does alpha bias cause stereotypical male and female characteristics to be?

Answer 6

Emphasised

Fixed and inevitable

Question 7

What is alpha bias likely to do?

Answer 7

Devalue females in relation to their male counterparts

Question 8

When does beta bias occur?

Answer 8

When differences between men and women are minimised

Question 9

When does beta bias happen?

Answer 9

When the findings obtained from men are applied to women without additional validation, which usually happens when female participants are not included as part of research process

Question 10

What is an example of beta bias?

Answer 10

Thought Kohlberg’s moral development findings from the study on men were applicable to women and universal

Question 11

What is androcentrism a consequence of?

Answer 11

Beta bias

Question 12

Why does androcentrism occur?

Answer 12

When all behaviour is compared according to a ‘male’ standard, often to the neglect or exclusion of women

Question 13

How is the psychodynamic explanation for offending an example of alpha bias?

Answer 13

It suggests criminality occurs due to a deviant superego
As females don’t experience castration anxiety, according to Freud, they have less of a need to identify with the moral standards of their same-sex parent
Suggests that females are less moral than males

Question 14

How does Freud’s idea of females having ‘Penis envy’ relate to alpha bias?

Answer 14

They are defined psychologically by the fact that they aren’t men

Question 15

How does Wilson’s sociobiological theory of relationship formation link to alpha bias?

Answer 15

The type of alpha bias may lead to stereotyping and prejudice against women who take part in such behaviours

Question 16

What does Wilson’s sociobiological theory of relationship formation suggest?

Answer 16

Sexual promiscuity in males is genetically determined, whereas promiscuous females are going against their nature

Question 17

How does schizophrenia diagnosis link to alpha bias?

Answer 17

More men are diagnosed with schizophrenia than women

The schizophrenic symptoms of women may be masked or not viewed as severe enough to merit a diagnosis

Question 18

What can androcentrism cause?

Answer 18

Female behaviour being misunderstood or pathologised (taken as a sign of a psychological instability)

Question 19

How is the view on PMS linked to androcentrism?

Answer 19

Some believe androcentrism is a social construct and trivialises female behaviour, especially anger.
However, male anger is seen as a logical response to external pressures

Question 20

Why do a lot of studies just use male participants?

Answer 20

They believe the results from males are enough to be generalisable to females, eg. flight or fight research conducted on male samples as the hormone levels in females would make it too hard to carry out

Question 21

What are positive consequences of alpha bias?

Answer 21

• Led some theorists to assert the worth and valuation of ‘feminine qualities’
• Led to healthy criticism of cultural values that praise certain ‘male’ qualities such as aggression and individualism as desirable, adaptive and universal

Question 22

What is universality?

Answer 22

The aim to develop theories that can apply to all people, which may include individual differences

Question 23

What can reduce universality?

Answer 23

Bias
Lack of Validity
Issues with reliability

Question 24

What is a positive consequence of beta bias?

Answer 24

• Makes people see men and women as the same which has led to equal treatment in legal terms and equal access to things such as education and employment

Question 25

What are negative consequences of alpha bias?

Answer 25

• Focus on differences between genders leads to the implication of similarity within genders, ignoring the way men differ from each other and women differ from each other
• Can sustain prejudices and stereotypes

Question 26

What are negative consequences of beta bias?

Answer 26

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

Question 27

What does Kitzinger (1998) argue?

Answer 27

Questions about sex differences aren’t just scientific questions, they’re also political so gender differences are distorted to maintain the status quo of male power

Question 28

What did Tavris (1993) argue?

Answer 28

Judgements about an individual women’s ability are made on the basis of average differences between the sexes or biased sex-role stereotypes and this also had the effect of lowering women’s self-esteem, making them, rather than men, thinking they had to improve themselves

Question 29

What is feminist psychology? What do they argue?

Answer 29

Although gender differences are minimal, they are used against women to maintain male power.
They argue that there are real differences but socially determined stereotypes make a far greater contribution to perceived differences

Question 30

What are examples of institutional sexism?

Answer 30

Men dominate at a senior teaching and research level in university
Research agenda follows male concerns and female concerns may be marginalised or ignored

Question 31

How is there gender bias in the use of standardised procedures in research studies?

Answer 31

• Most experimental methodologies are based around standardised treatment of participants, assuming men and women will respond in the same way
• Men and women may respond differently to the research situation
• Men and women may be treated differently by researchers
• Could create artificial differences or mask real ones

Question 32

How is there gender bias in dissemination of research results through academic journals?

Answer 32

• Publishing bias towards positive results
• Research that find gender differences are more likely to be published than those that don’t
• Exaggerates extent of gender differences

Question 33

What does the feminist perspective state should be examined?

Answer 33

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