gender bias and culture bias Flashcards
what is personal bias
Personal bias is when researchers aren’t objective when they carry out research.
what is gynocentrism
focus on women in research
what is universality
the assumption that research can be applied to everyone, everywhere, regardless of culture and time
a theory of behaviour that applies to everyone.
What is it called when theories try to generalise, in a way that applies to everyone?
nomothetic approach
what is bias
a distortion in representation of a group or data
what is gender bias
a distorted view of behaviours that may be typical or atypical for men and/or women
Gender bias is when the differences between men and women are misrepresented
what is androcentrism
a gender bias that reflects a male centred view of the world often to the neglect or exclusion of women
“male behaviour is the norm and female is abnormal/less desirable and women need fixing”
what are the 2 types of bias for gender bias
alpha and beta bias
what is alpha bias
refers to theories that EXAGGERATE gender differences, they reinforce gender STEREOTYPES
can make up these differences and so one gender is devalued
what is one problem with alpha bias
when males take a male prespective females may be compared to the male standard and then devalued as a consequence
what is beta bias
theories that ignore or minimise gender differences
assume all genders are the same and therefore is ok to apply same theories and methods. theories are produced that claim to have universality
what is culture bias/cultural bias
tendency to judge all people in terms of your own culture assumptions, distorts or biases our own judgement
When researchers misrepresent the differences between cultures
what is a culture/subcultures
cultures are values, beliefs, patterns of behaviour that are shared by a group of people
subcultures are within cultures and they have shared value systems also eg in britain ethic minority groups form subcultures as well as social class and youth. (egs)
what is ethnocentrism
the tendency to use the standards, norms and values of ones own culture as the baseline against which other cultures can be evaluated
When someone focuses on their own cultural perspective.
when the focus of research is restricted to a particular culture (/s)
Sometimes, this also involves assuming that their own cultural perspective is correct, or MORE IMPORTANT, and sometimes seeing the social practises of other cultures as WRONG
what are the consequences of ethonocentrism on validity (2 things)
Ethnocentrism may mean that results are not generalisable to other cultures, which reduces external validity.
Ethnocentrism may mean that research does not accurately measure the factors it intends to measure, which decreases internal validity.
When psychology research lacks validity or reliability due to ethnocentrism, we say that the research suffers from … and why could this be
ethnocentric bias
And this might be because the researchers ignored other cultures completely
Or because the researchers studied other cultures, but without understanding their cultural perspective
what is ethnocentric bias and
when research lacks validity or reliability because researchers focus on their own cultural perspective.
it can be prevented by cultural relativism
But, due to cultural differences, the results may not generalise to all cultures, and this means that the results may lack…
(consequence of ethnocentrism)
external reliability and external validity
consequence of ethnocentrism: mis….. +exp
ethnocentric standards for ‘normal behaviour’ mean that people from other cultures might be misdiagnosed with psychological conditions, because they are seen to be behaving abnormally
negative stereotypes about other cultures
other cultures being devalued
consequence of ethnocentrism: seeing other cultures as ‘abnormal’ may lead to…
other cultures being devalued.
harmful stereotypes.
who were the ps in ainsworths ss and why is that a limitation, exp
they were all middle class american mothers and so the findings may not generalise to other cultures because there are cultural variations/differences in attachment.
us- individualist = secure
other- collectivist = insecure resistant
SO ethnocentric bias
because the method of the ss focused on western perspective of child behaviour what does it lack and what does it judge
the method lacks reliability, validity
and suffers from ethnocentric bias because it judges the babies from other cultures by the standards of western social norms
Asch’s conformity experiment and Milgram’s obedience experiment involved only American participants, but claimed universality. So, these studies displayed ….. and why
ethnocentric bias
because they assumed that people from other cultures would behave like Americans.
what is eurocentrism
a form of enthocentrism that is particularly focused on the western world viewpoint
what is cultural relativism
where research may only relate to the culture it has studied.
behaviour cannot be properly judged unless it is viewed in the context of the culture in which it originates
Cultural relativism prevents prejudice and discrimination, because it
values all cultures equally. It assumes that no one culture is normal and it doesn’t see other cultures as abnormal
All of Milgram’s participants were men, and he concluded that anyone could be made to obey.
So, we can say that Milgram’s research displays…
beta bias
how does the fight or flight response display gender bias, and explain
original research was on male animals but because female animals and different hormones to males they have a different endocrine response to stress as a result more likely to show a caring/protective response to stress - tend and befriend
beta bias
3 studies suffering from beta bias (social influence)
asch, zimbardo, milgram
and theyre androcentric
beta bias can lead to awful consequences eg women started falling asleep while driving after taking ..
stilnox
what is the difference between andorcentrism and androcentric bias
When research focuses on male participants, that research is androcentric.
And when research lacks validity because it focuses on male participants, it suffers from androcentric bias
Thea conducts a study, with only male participants, into the attitudes of fathers.
is this androcentrism or androcentric bias or both
androcentrism because she was focusing on male attitudes
Tyler conducts a study, with only male participants, into the attitudes of soldiers.
is this androcentrism, androcentric bias or both
both
studying attitudes of male soldiers but generalising to all soldiers means it lacks validity
When women find out that they aren’t like men, and get angry at their mothers for having been born female, they are experiencing …… according to Freud’s theory of Psychosexual Stages.
penis envy
Because they suggest that there are enormous, permanent psychological differences between men and women, that do not exist, Freud’s theories suffer from…
androcentric alpha bias
Freud’s theories suffer from androcentricalpha bias, because they suggest that there are enormous, permanent psychological differences between men and women, and that female traits were abnormal and inferior..
how is freud an example of androcentrism
Freud based his research on male participants and made assumptions about females from it
When researchers suffer from androcentric bias, they reach invalid ……. , which provide an inaccurate and misleading picture of …… behaviour.
But, since experimental psychology as a discipline is so androcentric, researchers tend to be more interested in learning more about ….. behaviour, not in investigating …… behaviour.
conclusions
female
male
female
likely to remain unchallenged
what are the etic and emic approaches for
approaches of carrying out research in different cultures
what is an emic approach
involves the study of a culture from within to seek culturally specific phenomena and is associated with cultural relativism (the view that behaviour can only be understood when viewed from within the cultural context in which it originates
cultural relativism is the idea that
behaviours must be understood from the perspective of a specific culture.
If a researcher is studying minority influence among women, that’s not cultural relativism because ….
they’re studying the behaviour of women across all cultures, rather than understanding behaviour from the perspective of one specific culture.
Which term is being referred to in the following definition?
An individual’s behaviours and cognitions must be understood in terms of that person’s own culture.
cultural relativism
Which term is being referred to in the following definition?
When research is carried out in different cultures, to see whether results are the same everywhere, or are influenced by cultural factors.
cross cultural research
how can you avoid ethnocentric bias (link to types of validity
by conducting cross-cultural research eg use ps from a range of cultures > method has face validity in all locations it is used > increase external validity
a limitation of cultural relativism (alpha)
may exaggerate differences between cultures (cultural alpha bias) when really people across culture have things in common
can prevent psychs from producing universal theories when really they may actually have univerality
a limitation of cultural relativism (beta)
is that it can ignore differences within a culture, which is a form of betabias.
We’ve seen that Asch’s conformity research involves ethnocentric bias, because…
it assumes that all other cultures would conform in the same way as Americans.
it claims universality.
it lacks population validity
what is cross cultural research
research being carried out in different cultures, to see if theories generalise, or if there are cultural variations.
researchers from a number of different cultures, to minimise the risk of ethnocentric bias.
