Gender & Culture in Psychology: Gender Bias

Question 1

Define ‘gender bias’.

Answer 1

• Exaggerating or minimising gender differences that actually exist between men & women

Question 2

Define ‘universality’.

Answer 2

• Any underlying characteristic of human beings that is capable of being applied to all, despite differences of experience & upbringing

Gender bias & culture bias threaten the universality of findings in psychology.

Question 3

What are the two types of gender bias?

Answer 3

• Alpha Bias
• Beta Bias

Question 4

What is alpha bias?

Answer 4

• Research that focuses on exaggerating the difference between men & women

Question 5

What is beta bias?

Answer 5

• Research that focuses on exaggerating the similarity between men & women

Question 6

What is one reason for gender bias?

Answer 6

Androcentrism

Question 7

Define ‘androcentrism’.

Answer 7

• Taking male thinking/behaviour as normal, regarding female thinking/behaviour as deviant, inferior, abnormal when it is different

Question 8

Give one example of gender bias in psychological theory.

Answer 8

• Freuds theory of personality development
• Boys go through Oedipus complex & through resolution develop super ego
• Freud said that girls suffer ‘penis envy’ & to overcome this they identify w their mothers- this led to a less developed super ego
• Less morality, bias against females

Question 9

Give another example of gender bias in psychological theory.

Answer 9

• In 1950’s- 1970’s many theories focused on the role the mother played in the emotional development of their child
• Bowlby’s maternal deprivation theory & Ainsworth theory of secure attachment

Question 10

Give a third example of gender bias in psychological research.

Answer 10

• Until the 1990s, many psychology experiments were conducted on male undergraduates & their findings generalised to women as well e.g. Milgram, Asch, Zimbardo, Loftus
• However in other studies, only women were used- Zimbardo’s deindividuation study, Moscivicis minority influence study

Question 11

Give one limitation of gender bias.

Answer 11

• OL is that gender differences are often presented as fixed & enduring (i.e alpha bias) when they are not
• Maccoby & Jacklin (1974) presented the findings of several gender studies which concluded that girls have superior verbal ability whereas boys have better spatial ability
• Maccoby & Jacklin suggested that these differences are ‘hardwired’ into the brain before birth- such findings become widely reported & seen as facts
• In fact Joel et al (2015) used brain scanning & found no such sex differences in brain structure or processing.
• It is possible that data from Maccoby & Jacklin was popularised because it fitted existing stereotypes of girls as ‘speakers’ & boys as ‘doers’

This suggests we shold be wary of accepting research findings as biological facts when they might be explained better as social stereotypes

Question 12

Give another limitation of gender bias.

Answer 12

• OL: Gender bias promotes sexism in the research process
• Women remian underrepresented in university departments, particularly in science.
• Although psychologys 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 & this may disadvantage ppts who are women.
• For example, a male researcher may expect women to be irrational & unable to complete complex tasks (Nocolson 1995) & such expectations are likely to mean that women under perform in research studies

This means that the instituational structures & methods of psychology may produce findings that are gender biased

Question 13

Give a third limitation of gender bias.

Answer 13

• Questionable validity of theory & research
• Leads to invalid information published and taken as a ‘fact’ because scientifically ‘validated’
• May be used politically or socially to perpetuate stereotypes/develop policies
• Early research suggested that the stress response either led to a fight or flight behaviour.
• However Taylor 2000 found that women are likely to ‘tend & befriend’ in such a situation