ID - Gender and Culture Bias

Question 1

Gender bias

Answer 1

Different treatment or representation of men and women based on stereotypes rather than real differences

Question 2

Androcentrism

Answer 2

A theory based on male behaviour but applied to females and therefore is biased

Question 3

Beta bias

Answer 3

Theories that minimalize or ignore the differences between men and women

Question 4

Alpha bias

Answer 4

Theories that exaggerate the difference between men and women

Question 5

Universality

Answer 5

Any characteristics of human beings which can be applied to all people

Question 6

Cultural bias

Answer 6

Tendency to judge all people in terms of your own culture assumptions

Question 7

Ethnocentrism

Answer 7

The belief that one’s own group is central or even superior

Question 8

Cultural relativism

Answer 8

One cannot judge a behaviour properly unless its viewed in the context of the culture it originates from

Question 9

Imposed etic

Answer 9

A theory or technique developed in one culture and used to study the behaviour of people of another culture

Question 10

Emic approach

Answer 10

• Something that applies only in one culture
• An approach that focuses on culturally specific practices and meanings rather than universal generalizations

Question 11

Alpha bias example

Answer 11

• Psychodynamic - ‘deviant superego causes criminality’
• If true, higher percentage of women would be criminals (which is not the case) ; they do not go through castration anxiety in the phallic stage of Freud’s psychosexual stages, resulting in weaker superegos
• Suggest females are less ‘moral’

Question 12

Androcentrism and Beta bias examples

Answer 12

• Early research of flight or fight response was done solely on male animals but was assumed to be a universal response
• Later, psychologists discovered the tend or befriend response for the female population

Question 13

Cultural bias example

Answer 13

• Ainsworth’s strange situation only reflects the norms and values of American culture as research was solely conducted on American infants
• Suggested that the ‘ideal’ attachment was when infants showed moderate amounts of distress when left alone by primary caregiver
• German mothers were seen as cold and rejecting rather than encouraging independence in their children

Question 14

Evaluation of cultural bias

Answer 14

• May validate stereotypes and discrimination
• Differences in collectivist cultures and individualist cultures may be oversimplistic as globalisation and the internet has led to more integrated norms
• Cultural relativism should not be assumed for all human behaviours as some may be universal. For example, critiques of the Ainsworth Strange Situation should consider that some features of human attachment are universal such as imitation and interactional synchrony
• Researchers are now able to travel which means there is an increase in cross-cultural research and hence a decrease in ethnocentrism

Question 15

Evaluation of gender bias

Answer 15

• May validate stereotypes and discrimination
• Sexism within the research process: research questions are based on male concerns as there is a lack of women at senior level research positions
• Reflexivity: Being ‘up-front’ about ones biases can reduce gender bias