gender bias A03 Flashcards
biological versus social explanations
P) One limitation is that gender differences are often presented as fixed and enduring (i.e. alpha bias) when they are not.
E) Eleanor Maccoby and Carol Jacklin 1974) presented the findings of several gender studies which concluded that girls have superior verbal ability whereas boys have better spatial ability. Maccoby and Jacklin suggested that these differences are ‘hardwired’ into the brain before birth.
E) Such findings become widely reported and seen as facts. In fact Daphna Joel et al. (2015) used brain scanning and found no such sex differences in brain structure or processing. It is possible that the data from Maccoby and Jacklin was popularised because it fitted existing stereotypes of girls as ‘speakers’ and boys as ‘doers.
L) This suggests that we should be wary of accepting research findings as biological facts
when they might be explained better as social stereotypes.
Counterpoint
However, this does not mean that psychologists should avoid studying possible gender differences in the brain. For instance, research by Madura Ingalhalikar et al. (2014) suggests that the popular social stereotype that women are better at multitasking may have some biological truth to it. It seems that a woman’s brain may benefit from better connections between the right and the left hemisphere than in a man’s brain (research on gender stereotypes is discussed on page 149).
This suggests that there may be biological differences but we still should be wary of exaggerating the effect they may have on behaviour.
Sexism in research
p) Another limitation is that gender bias promotes sexism in the research process.
E) Women remain underrepresented in university departments, particularly in science.
Although psychology’s undergraduate intake is mainly of women, lecturers in psychology departments are more likely to be men (Murphy et al. 2014). This means research is more likely to be conducted by men and this may disadvantage participants who are women.
E) For example, a male researcher may expect women to be irrational and unable to complete complex tasks (Nicolson 1995) and such expectations are likely to mean that women underperform in research studies.
L) This means that the institutional structures and methods of psychology may produce
findings that are gender-biased.
Gender-biased research
P) A further limitation is that research challenging gender biases may not be published.
E) Magdalena Formanowicz et al. (2018) analysed more than 1000 articles relating to gender bias, published over eight years. They found that research on gender bias is funded less often and is published by less prestigious journals. The consequence of this is that fewer scholars become aware of it or apply it within their own work.
E) The researchers argued that this still held true when gender bias was compared with other forms of bias, such as ethnic bias, and when other factors were controlled, such as the gender of the authors) and the methodology used other forms of bias.
L)This suggests that gender bias in psychological research may not be taken as seriously as
