Issues and Debates 🚫

Question 1

Gender Bias | What are some key differences in men and women?

Answer 1

The difficulty lies in distinguishing “real” from culturally created gender differences.

Evidence suggests that there are a small number of real gender differences, confirmed through cross-cultural studies.

> Maccoby and Jacklin (1974)
— Girls have greater verbal ability
— Boys have greater visual and spatial abilities
— Boys have greater arithmetical ability, which is a difference that only appears in adolescence
— Girls are less aggressive than boys

Question 2

Gender Bias | What are the similarities between men and women?

Answer 2

All people have the same basic and physiological survival needs - there are no expectations to this.
— It is difficult to make hard and fast psychological rules which apply to everyone, only biological rules.

Question 3

Gender Bias | What is the definition of gender bias?

Answer 3

The differential treatment and/or representation of males and females, based on stereotypes and not real differences.

Question 4

Gender Bias | What is Gynocentrism?

Answer 4

Theories which are centred on, or focused on females. This can be conscious or unconscious.

Question 5

Gender Bias | What is Androcentrism?

Answer 5

Theories centred on, or dominated by, males or male viewpoint.

Question 6

Gender Bias | What is alpha bias in gender?

Answer 6

Refers to theories which EXAGGERATES the differences between males and females.

Question 7

Gender Bias | What is Beta bias?

Answer 7

Refers to theories which ignore or minimise sex differences. These theories often assume that the findings from males can equally apply to females.

Question 8

Gender Bias | What is the beliefs does the sociobiological theory hold on gender? (evolutionary psychology)

Answer 8

The view that all human behaviour is the result of evolutionary pressures placed upon us up to 10,000 years ago.
— Our main goal is to survive and reproduce our genes

As a result of men and women having very different roles in reproduction, they have very different adaptive strategies.

— Men wish to mate often, with many different partners and to minimise investing in them, they want to maximise their chance of having successful offspring.
— Men are dominant and are more likely to commit adultery.

+ Women wish to be more cautious when selecting a mate, and desire a partner who will support them and provide for her and her offspring.
+ Women have more parental investment in their children because they are more costly to them and they have fewer chances to reproduce.

Question 9

Gender Bias | What implications for the sociobiological theory have on gender?

Answer 9

Men are generally seen as stronger and ‘protectors’ women as much needier - caregivers rather than wage-earners.

Implications that maternity pay is not needed if motherhood is less valued than working outside the home.

Gender pay gap = men should earn more than women.

Men mewed as more promiscuous, women as more cautious leading to damaging stereotypes.

The view that these differences are ‘natural’ and therefore permanent.

Question 10

Gender Bias | What is Freud’s view of gender?

Answer 10

Freud argued that ‘anatomy is destiny’ meaning that there are genuine psychological differences between men and women because of their physiological differences.

Young boys suffer from Oedipal conflict (boys desire their mother and therefore have castration anxiety from their father).

Girls suffer from Electra complex (desires father but realises she has no penis so identifies with mother).

Freud argued that because girls do not suffer the same Oedipal conflict as boys, they do not identify with their mothers as strongly as boys with their fathers, so develop a weaker superego.
— Therefore, femininity to Freud is a failure of masculinity and women are seen as inferior and less developed than men.

Question 11

Gender Bias | What are the implications on gender based on Freud’s view?

Answer 11

Implies that women are ‘lesser’ than men. That they are less developed, less moral (due to underdeveloped superego) and weaker.

Men are implied to be decision-makers and the power in the household and in society.

Freud’s view was based in biology, he suggests that these differences are inevitable and universal, and that women should not struggle for suffrage for equal rights, because they are simply less capable than men.

Question 12

Gender Bias | What is the fight or flight response on gender?

Answer 12

This is our response to shock or sudden stressors, first described by Walter Bradford Cannon (1914).

Biological research into fight or flight response has often been carried out with male animals.

The research was conducted using male animals, simply for convenience because in female animals hormonal fluctuations of the menstrual cycle can confuse results.

— It was assumed that this would be not a problem as the fight or flight response would be the same for both sexes.

Question 13

Gender Bias | What are the implications of the fight or flight response?

Answer 13

Assuming that male result are valid for both sexes can limit research and limit our consequent understanding of human behaviour - a real difference between men and women was ignored, even though it existed because of the assumption of similarity between the sexes.

However, a beta bias can prompt for more research:
— Taylor et al (2000) found that females adopts a ‘tend and befriend’ response in stressful / dangerous situations.
— Women are more likely to protect their offspring (tend) and form alliances with other women (befriending), rather than fight an adversary or flee.

Question 14

Gender bias | What is Kohlberg’s theory of moral development?

Answer 14

Kohlberg developed a stage model of the development of morality in children.

The model was based on all-male sample of boys ages 10-16; he conducted extensive interviews then re-interviewed at intervals of 3-4 years over a 20 year period.

One criticism of Kohlberg theory is that it emphasises justice and ignores other values such as principles of compassion and care (which may be more important to women, but are not included in this theory).

Kohlberg states that women tend to get stuck at level 3, focusing on details on who to maintain relationships and promote welfare of family and friends. Men are likely to move on to the abstract principles, and thus have less concern with the particulars of who is involved. Therefore, to Kohlberg, men are ‘more highly moral.’

> Carol Gilligan (1982)
— Found that women tend to be more focused on relationships when making moral decisions and therefore often appear to be at a lower level of moral reasoning when using Kohlberg’s system.

Question 15

Gender bias | What are the implications of Kohlberg’s moral development?

Answer 15

Women are seen as less moral, because they usually stay ‘stuck’ at stage three rather than moving onto stage four.

A more typically ‘male’ morality is valued more and so it is seen as the only kind of true morality.

‘Feminine’ type morality is seen as inferior and this might have implications for female criminals or females applying for certain roles because they may be viewed as morally weaker.

Question 16

Gender bias | EVALUATION

Answer 16

STRENGTH - FEMINIST APPROACH
P: A way to reduce gender bias is to take a feminist approach that attempts to restore the imbalance in both psychological theories and research.
E: For example, feminist psychology accepts that there are biological differences between males and females, but argues that socially determined stereotypes make a greater contribution to perceived differences.
E: Research by Eagly (1978) claims that females are less effective leaders than males.
L: However, the purpose of Eagly’s claim is to help researchers develop training programmes aimed at increasing the number of female leaders in the real world.

STRENGTH - RESEARCH SUPPORT FOR IMPROVING GENDER BIAS
P: By developing a greater understanding of gender bias, psychologists have put forward a number of solutions.
E: For example, some psychologicsts attempt;t to develop theories that emphasises the importance or value of women.
E: Cornell et al. (2013) noted that females are better at learning, as they are more attentive and organised, thus emphasising both the value of and the positive attributes of women.
L: As a result, this type of research helps to reduce or challenge gender stereotypes, and change people’s preconceptions, which is important in reducing gender bias.

LIMITATION - GENDER BIAS IS OFTEN UNCHALLENGED
P: Issues of gender, unfortunately, often go unchallenged
E: For example, Darwin’s established theory of sexual selection suggests that women are selective in terms of mate selection.
E: These views have only recently been challenged by DNA evidence suggesting that women are equally as competitve as men when the need arises.
L: It is important that old theories are revisited with current research being conducted to support or refute the claims being made.

BIAS AGAINST MALES
P: It’s also important to remember that gender bias can also work against males as well as females, as sometimes alpha bias theories heighten the value of women.
E: For example, Chodorow (1978) viewed women as more rational and caring.
E: Another example, is that women are more likely to be diagnosed and given treatment than males.
E: This may be because women are more likely to suffer from depression, or it could be that the diagnostic system may be biased towards finding depression amount women.
L: The expectation that males should be able to ‘pull themselves together’ may highlight an issue with the diagnostic systems for mental disorders.

Question 17

Culture Bias | What is cultural bias?

Answer 17

Cultural bias is the tendency to judge people in terms of one’s own cultural assumptions.

Question 18

Culture Bias | What is alpha bias in relation to culture?

Answer 18

Alpha bias occurs when a theory assumes that cultural groups are profoundly different, and that recognition of these enduring differences must always inform psychological research and understanding.

Question 19

Culture Bias | What is beta bias in relation to culture?

Answer 19

Occurs when real cultural differences are ignored or minimised, and all people are assumed to be the same, resulting in universal research designs and conclusions that mistakenly assume that all cultures are identical.

Question 20

Culture Bias | What is ethnocentrism?

Answer 20

Ethnocentrism means seeing the world only from one’s own cultural perspective, and believing that this one perspective is both normal and correct.

Question 21

Culture Bias | What is cultural relativism?

Answer 21

Cultural relativism insists that behaviour can be properly understood only if the cultural context is taken into consideration.

Question 22

Culture Bias | Where can culture bias be seen in intelligence testing?

Answer 22

> Brislin (1976)
— Illustrates the concepts of ethnocentrism and imposed ethic using the example of intelligence tests.

Demonstrations of intelligence in Western culture often involve completing tasks ‘against the clock’ such as timed assessments like exams. However, Brislin asks about the validity of this notion of ‘mental quickness’ in relation to intelligence.

The Baganda people of Uganda characterise intelligence as slow, careful and deliberate thought. They might view this ‘speed of thought’ as thoughtlessness or rashness.

Question 23

Culture Bias | What did Cochrane and Sashidharan (1995) regrading culture bias and mental illness?

Answer 23

> Cochrane and Sashidharan (1995)
— Found that African-American immigrants to the US were seven times more likely to be diagnosed with a mental illness than other cultural groups.
— Being a recent immigrant to a new (and very different) country could be a huge stressor, so perhaps this is a risk factor for some mental illnesses.
— HOWEVER, it is also very likely that behaviours of minority groups are interpreted as ‘symptoms’, whereas the same behaviours, displayed by the majority group, which would be considered normal.

Question 24

Culture Bias | Give examples of three culture-bound syndrome in the DSM-IV.

Answer 24

KORO
— A panic disorder experienced by Chinese men
— An individuals has an overpowering belief that his or her genitalia are retracting and will disappear, despite the lack of any changes to the gentians.
— Includes anxiety including fear of impending death, penile dissolution and less of sexual power.
— Asians generally believe that koro symptoms are fatal.

GHOST SICKNESS
— A cultural belief among some traditional indigenous people in North America, notably the Navajo.
— People who are preoccupied by the deceased are believed to suffer from ghost sickness
— Reported symptoms can include general weakness, loss of appetite, recurring nightmares, and a pervasive feeling of terror

BRAIN FAG SYNDROME
— It was discovered in Nigeria, describing high school and university students with symptoms including somatic (relating to the body), sleep-related and cognitive complaints, head and neck pains, difficulty in concentrating and retaining and information and eye pain.
— It is caused by excessive external pressure to be successful amount the young.

Question 25

Culture Bias | How are culture-bound syndromes presented in DSM-V?

Answer 25

They’re not. These culturally-specific syndromes were removed when the DSM(V) was introduced in 2015, and replaced with guidance for practitioners around how members of ethnic minorities may present symptoms differently.

Question 26

Culture Bias | What is an example of an ethnocentric research?

Answer 26

> Ainsworth’s Strange situation
— The Strange situation was developed to assess attachment types, and many researchers assume that the Strange Situation has the same meaning for the infants from other cultures, as it does for American children.
— German children, on average, demonstrate a higher rate of insecure-avoidant behaviour. However, it is not the case that German mothers are more insensitive than American mothers.
— Instead, they value and encourage independent behaviour, and therefore their children react differently in the Strange Situation

The strange situation has been described as an imposed etic, which is a technique or theory developed in one culture and then imposed on another.

Question 27

Culture Bias | EVALUATION

Answer 27

LIMITATION - CONSEQUENCES OF CULTURAL BIAS
P: Culturally biased research can have significant real-world effect, for example, amplifying and validating damaging stereotypes
E: The US army used an IQ test before WWI which was culturally biased towards the white dominant majority
E: Unsurprisingly, the test showed that African-Americans were at the bottom of the IQ scale and this had a negative effect on the attitudes of Americans toward this group of people, which highlights the negative impact that culturally biased research can have.

STRENGTH - RECOGNISE WHEN IT OCCURS
P: One way to deal with cultural bias is to recognise it when it occurs.
E: Smith and Bond found, in their 1998 survey of European textbooks on social psychology, that 66% of the studies were American, 32% European and 2% from the rest of the world.
E: This suggests that much psychological research is severely unrepresentative and can be greatly improved by simply selecting different cultural groups to study.
L: Therefore, just by appreciating and understanding cultural bias can help psychologists to overcome this issue.