Issues and Debates

Question 1

Androcentric

Answer 1

male-orientated, where females are not included in studies or theories

Question 2

Alpha Bias (Culture)

Answer 2

where research maximises the difference between cultures in order to argue that some cultures are superior to other cultures

Question 3

Alpha Bias (Gender)

Answer 3

theories that maximise sex differences, like Freud

Question 4

Anthropological Approach

Answer 4

going to different cultures and observing and interacting with their members as they go about their lives to gain understanding

Question 5

Beta Bias (Culture)

Answer 5

theories that ignore or minimise the differences between cultures

Question 6

Beta Bias (Gender)

Answer 6

theories that ignore or minimise sex differences

Question 7

Bias

Answer 7

leaning in a particular direction, a systematic distortion in one’s attitude and beliefs based on prejudice and pre-existing ideas

Question 8

Bruehl (1980)

Answer 8

stated that Freud’s characterisation of females simply reflected the reality of Western patriarchal structure of the time

Question 9

Carolin Schuster (2022)

Answer 9

went to various HR specialists with two CVs identical apart from the person’s gender and found that men were offered over €1000 more than women, unless the specialists were reminded of their duty to resolve the gender pay gap first, where the opposite became true

Question 10

Chitling Test

Answer 10

developed by black sociologist Adrian Dove to expose how standardised IQ tests favoured white students however it neglected the range of experiences black people have

Question 11

Cornwell et al (2013)

Answer 11

found that girls outperform boys on reading, whereas boys outperform girls on maths and science, but that boys who perform equally to girls are graded less favourably, but this vanishes when non-cognitive skills such as motivation and perseverance are taken into account

Question 12

Cross-Cultural Psychology

Answer 12

studying a range of different cultures to find out about the variability of human behaviour

Question 13

Culture Bias

Answer 13

the act of interpreting and judging behaviour and psychological characteristics of one culture by holding them to the same standards as your own

Question 14

Culture-Bound Syndrome

Answer 14

a combination of psychiatric and somatic symptoms that is limited to a number of cultures

Question 15

EMIC Research

Answer 15

aims to identify behaviours relative to that culture, emphasising difference

Question 16

Ethnocentrism

Answer 16

the belief that one’s own culture is superior

Question 17

ETIC Research

Answer 17

culture specific research that looks at behaviour from the outside of a given culture and tries to find trends that can be generalised

Question 18

Experiment-Based Empiricism

Answer 18

an emphasis on experiments with controls and group comparisons using ANOV analyses exists in Western society and lab studies are favoured over field studies

Question 19

Falisifiability

Answer 19

when something can be disproved

Question 20

Feminist Psychology

Answer 20

involves re-examining facts about gender, viewing women as normal people rather than deficient men, scepticism toward biological determinism, a research agenda focusing on women’s concerns and developing a psychology for women rather than of women

Question 21

Formulation of Question Bias

Answer 21

it is assumed that topics relevant to white males are more important than those relevant to females or ethnic minority males

Question 22

Gender

Answer 22

psychological characteristics associated with being male or female

Question 23

Hare-Mustin and Maracek (1988)

Answer 23

theorised that alpha bias, is seen in research that focuses on the differences between of men and women and beta is seen in research that focuses on similarities

Question 24

Hare-Mustin and Maracek (1988) (Gilligan)

Answer 24

argue that Gilligan explains gender difference in terms of social construction whereby female caringness is a necessary trait for those placed in subordinate positions in order to supress their anger, so female qualities can be seen as different rather than inferior, yet this does not consider difference between women so is a misrepresentation of individuals

Question 25

Henrich

Answer 25

found that 68% of participants came from the US and 69% from industrialised nations

Question 26

Horney (1927)

Answer 26

stated that Freud’s work has no face validity in assuming that a woman is mentally affected by a wish for male attributes and that if women envied men, it would be because of social status

Question 27

Individuality

Answer 27

where the individual is the focus of behaviour and determinants of behaviour reside in the individual’s brain/mind and interventions must be at this level rather than the broader societal context, an assumption of Western psychology

Question 28

Institutional Sexism

Answer 28

men predominate at senior researcher level so the research agenda follows male concerns, marginalising or ignoring female concerns

Question 29

John Berry (1969)

Answer 29

described the distinction between etic and emic approaches in studying human behaviour and accused psychology of imposing an etic approach

Question 30

Jonelsson (1988)

Answer 30

stated that classic psychoanalytic theory is grounded in the genital inferiority of women and assumes they must also be morally inferior

Question 31

Kitzinger (1998)

Answer 31

argued that most differences between men and women due to political reasons, eg women are oppressed, stereotypes and have different rights, and are kept out of male-dominated universities

Question 32

Maccoby and Jacklin (1974)

Answer 32

found that men are better at visual, spatial and arithmetic tasks when compared to women

Question 33

Mead (1935)

Answer 33

studied gender roles across three tribes in Papua New Guinea. The Arapesh valued co-operating, raised children to be gentle and loving, and child-bearing was highly-valued and seen as a job for both parents. The Mundugumor were quarrelsome, fierce and arrogant, treated children harshly and admitted hating child-rearing. The Tchambuli regarded men as emotional and unfit for making serious decisions, but in all tribes the men went to war

Question 34

Method and Design Bias

Answer 34

lab experiments are considered more masculine whereas interviews, observations and case studies are typically more feminine

Question 35

Oestrocentrism

Answer 35

the process of viewing the world through a female-centred point of view; the opposite of androcentric

Question 36

Publication Bias

Answer 36

where male biased editors and reviewers of psychology journals filter out research on women or studies that report no differences in gender but exaggerate the gender differences

Question 37

Quantification

Answer 37

the belief that unless something is quantified it is not acceptable for study, leading to operationalism being the standard for assessing concepts

Question 38

Reductionism (Culture)

Answer 38

in Western psychology, the small tangible units of study that yield well to controlled experimentation are favoured

Question 39

Replicative Approach

Answer 39

exporting your studies to other countries to do there, then comparing them with your own culture

Question 40

Reporting Bias

Answer 40

where results are interpreted as evidence of female inferiority and results on one sex are applied to both

Question 41

Researcher Bias

Answer 41

female academics may find themselves marginalised into areas outside of mainstream psychology and androcentric researchers are more likely to propose hypotheses that investigate stereotypical differences rather than real one or similarities, do not investigate issues important to women and perpetuate biased ideas, for example, searching for causes within women for abnormal behaviour but in the environment for men

Question 42

Schaffer (1993)

Answer 42

found that men are less sensitive and more physically active, whereas women are more sensitive but are less likely to have language disorders

Question 43

Scientism

Answer 43

the belief that methods of the physical science can be applied similarly to social and behavioural phenomena, which results in spurious methods and conclusions that are inappropriate to the subject under study or that avoid studying certain subjects

Question 44

Tavris (1993)

Answer 44

came up with the idea of ‘mismeasure of women’ where man is the norm and women are the opposite, and women are deficient in male qualities and found evidence for publication bias

Question 45

Taylor (2000)

Answer 45

found gender differences in the fight or flight response

Question 46

Trans-Cultural Psychology

Answer 46

studying a range of different cultures to find out about the universal features of human behaviour

Question 47

Walkers (1984)

Answer 47

meta-analysis of 108 studies found only eight clear indications of gender differences

Question 48

WEIRD Populations

Answer 48

White Educated Industrialised Rich Democrat

Question 49

Williams (1987)

Answer 49

argues that Freud’s theory is not alpha-bias because he did not claim that innate factors made men and women difference, rather that the social context transforms biological factors into mental representations that create difference, therefore explaining differences in terms of mental and social representation

Question 50

Williams and Best (1982)

Answer 50

found that men are more aggressive, dominant, independent and autonomous compared with women, who are more nurturing, deferent, affiliated and are encouraged to develop expressive roles

Question 51

Womb Envy

Answer 51

a theory put forward by Karen Horney that states men must envy women because of their ability to have children, so men compensate for that inability by achievement in other domains