Issues and Debates Flashcards
Who argued the existence of 2 types of gender bias?
Hare-Mustin and Marecek
Alpha bias
exaggerates the difference between males and females
How does Freud show alpha bias?
As girls do not suffer the same oedipal complex as boys, they do not identify with their mothers as strongly as boys identify with their fathers, leading to a weak superego
Alpha bias in the evolutionary approach
The evolutionary approach describes men as dominant, explaining their tendency for adultery and women as a parental investment
Why is the evolutionary approach not suitable to justify gender differences?
Society has changed considerably over recent years, so the traditional gender roles of men and women are no longer applicable and the evolutionary perspective should not be used to justify gender differences
Beta bias
Traditionally ignores or minimizes the differences between males and females
Kohlberg - Moral development Sample
Based on extensive interviews with boys aged 10-16
the same all male sample was re-interviewed at 3-4 year intervals over a course of 20 years
How does Kohlbergs theory of moral development show beta bias?
His classification system was based on a morality of justice and some researchers (Carol Gilligan) have found that women tend to be more focused on relationships when making moral decisions and therefore often appear at a lower level of moral reasoning when using Kohlbergs system
How does psychological research generally show beta bias?
Male and female participants used in most studies with no attempt to analyse the data to see whether there are any significant sex differences
What are differences between males and females in psychological research likely to be caused by?
Different treatment of male and female participants
What did Rosenthal conclude when looking at different treatment of male and female participants in psychological research?
‘Male and female participants may, psychologically, not be in the same experiment at all’
what did Rosenthal find when looking at different treatment of men and women in psychological research?
Male experimenters were more pleasant, friendly, honest and encouraging with female participants compared to male participants
Beta bias in animal research
‘Fight-or-flight’ response based on male animals as they have less hormone variation, making the assumed that the response in females would be the same
What did Taylor find when analysing the beta bias in ‘fight-or-flight’?
Females ‘tend-and-befriend’
The beta bis meant that the stress response was not fully understood and a real difference was ignored
Androcentrism
Male dominated
What did Freus suggest about the differences between males and females?
‘Anatomy is destiny’
There are genuine psychological differences between males and females because of their physiological differences
What did Freud suggest about femininity?
Femininity is a form of masculinity as young girls suffer from penis envy
4 differences between boys and girls, consluded my Maccoby and Jacklin
Girls have greater verbal ability
Boys have greater visual and spatial abilities
Boys have greater arithmetic abilities (in adolescence)
Boys are more aggressive
Social Influence researchers who used an all male sample
Asch
Perrin & Spencer
Ethnocentrism
Seeing the world from only ones own cultural perspective, and believing that this one perspective is both normal and correct
Cultural relativism
The idea that cultural norms and values are culture specific and no-one culture is superior to another culture
Culture
The values, beliefs and patterns of behvaiour shared by a group of people
Who has historically dominated psychology?
White, middle-class American males, who have monopolized both as researchers and as participants
Cultural bias
The tendency to judge others in terms of ones own cultural assumptions
