Issues and Debates Flashcards
What is gender bias?
-the tendency to favour one gender over another in psychological research, theory/ practice
Universality
-research applies equally to everyone, regardless of time and culture
-assuming universality causes bias
why does gender bias happen?
-make samples are generalised to female
-male behaviour is seen as standard—} other behaviour from women is seen as deviating from the norm
-biological differences are over emphasised(so social + external factors are underestimated)
What is androcentrism?
-when normal behaviour is judged according to a male standard, so female behaviour is judged as abnormal in comparison
-may lead to women’s behaviour being pathologised(taken as a sign of illness) i.e PMS medicalises women’s emotions whereas male behaviour is seen as a rational response to external pressures according to femenists
Consequences of androcentrism: alpha bias
-attempt to exaggerate the differences between the genders
-enhances/undervalues either sex but historically undervalues women
Examples of alpha bias
i.e Freud’s psychosexual stages= boys can resolve castration anxiety in the phallic stage to develop a strong superego but girls don’t identify as strongly with their mother so they have a weaker superego
-i.e Chodorow suggest that mothers and daughters have a greater connection that sons and mothers which is why women can bond and empathise better
Consequences of androcentrism: beta bias
-attempt to downplay the differences between the genders
-happens even when women have been excluded from the research process
Examples of beta bias
-biological research on the fight or flight response favours males but Taylor et al claimed that the ‘love’ hormone oxytocin is more in women and they produce it in response to stress—} more likely to tend and befriend
-Milgram found that 65% of his male ppts would shock up to 450v but didn’t look at obedience in women
Evaluating gender bias:
institutional sexism
-decisions made around publishing research are in the hands of men—} they predominate at senior researcher level, so research agenda follows male concern
-although psych undergraduates are mainly women, lecturers in depts are more likely to be men(Murphy 2014)
-Researchers may have gendered expectations of women to perform poorly on tasks/be irrational which may disadvantage female ppts(Nicholson 1995)
-bias in the institutional structure= gender bias
Evaluating gender bias:
misleading stereotypes
-essentialist perspective= gender differences are ‘inevitable’ and fixed within nature
-gives scientific evidence to support harmful claims i.e Walkerdine(1990) reported that research in 1930s suggested that intellectual activity i.e going to uni would shrivel a woman’s ovaries and reduce chances of childbirth
-in a domain in which men set the standard of normalcy, Carol Tavris(1993) -‘it becomes normal for women to feel abnormal’
Evaluating gender bias:
Reflexivity
-Researcher’s values + assumptions can have an affect on their work—} must embrace it as a crucial part of their research
-Dambrin & Lambert(2008) studied the lack of women in executive positions in accountancy firms—} reflected on how their gender related experiences influence their reading of events
-may lead to greater awareness of the role of personal biases in shaping research in the future
Evaluating gender bias:
Input of feminist psychologists
-Worrel(1992)= women should be researched in real life contexts and genuinely participate
-diversity within groups of women should be examined rather than comparisons between women & men
-greater emphasis on collaborative research methods that collect qualitative data
What is culture bias?
-interpreting and judging behaviour/characteristics of a culture by holding them to the standards of your own
-ignoring the effects that cultural differences may have on behaviour
(cultural) Universality
-mainstream psych has generally ignored culture as an important influence on behaviour—} wrongly assume universality
-i.e Milgram’s study of obedience was only tested on American ppts but showed different results when Kilman and Mann(1974) replicated in Australia= 16% women and 40% men in comparison to Milgram’s 65%
Culture bias in the psychological field
-Henrich et al(2010) reviewed hundreds of studies in journals and found that 68% of research ppts came from the US and 96% were from industrialised nations
-coined the term WEIRD to for ppts:
Westernised
Educated
Industrialised
Rich
Democracies
-Ammet(2008) found that 80% of research ppts were undergrads studying psychology students
What is culture and subculture?
-a system of beliefs and customs shared by a group of people
Ethnocentrism (+examples)
-the belief in the superiority of one’s own cultural group
-i.e Ainsworth and Bell’s strange situation—} led to misinterpretation of child rearing practices in other countries which were seen to deviate from the “norm” (Takahashi + Japanese babies)
Emic constructs
-applies only in cultural group and focuses on uniqueness + culturally specific phenomena
-interested in immersion(studying from within the culture)
-leads to cultural relativism= research is only applicable to the culture it was conducted in
Etic constructs
-theoretical idea that is assumed to apply in all cultural groups
-involves applying studies from outside the culture and producing universal claims
-leads to cultural bias if a research assumes that an emic construct is etic
What is imposed etic?
-assumes that culture does not affect results, so research is applicable to all cultures
-results in ethnocentrism(seeing own culture as ‘norm’ and deviation within other cultures as abnormal)
-Van Ijzendoorn rejected Ainsworth’s universal attachment types: “the meaning of behaviour can only be understood with reference to its cultural context”
