Issues and Debates Flashcards
Gender bias
Results when one gender is treated less favourable than the other, often referred to as sexism and has consequences like:
- Scientifically misleading
- Upholding stereotypical
assumptions
- Validating sex discrimination
Alpha bias
- Exaggerating the differences between men and women
Example of Alpha Bias
Aggression- Shackleford study- Supports the concept of male sexual jealousy as an evolutionary drive- justifies aggression to females
Androcentrism
Taking male thinking/ behaviour as normal, regarding female thinking/ behaviour as deviant, inferior, abnormal, “other” when it is different
Example of Androcentrism
Freud’s psychosexual theory- focuses on male development and views female development as a deviation from the male norm.
Beta Bias
Exaggerating the similarity between men and women
Example of Beta Bias
- Research on fight or flight response- Focused mainly on males (both animals and humans), assuming everyone reacts to stress the same way, which ignores that females often have a “tend and befriend” response.
AO3 Institutional sexism in psychology
Institutional sexism in psychology:
- Positions of power taken by males
AO3:
- Men predominate at senior researcher level
- Bowlby- monotropic theory- females won’t earn money/ no jobs
- Women and men might respond differently to research situation (often use male stimuli -> Asch’s line study- “maths” appears more to males and + males more likely to conform12
- Publishing bias towards positive results (that finds a difference between males and females-> are exaggerated. Problem- gender differences
AO3- How can the effects of gender bias be minimised in psychological bias?
- Use male and female participants. Looking into supporting women- not labelling women (e.g post- natal depression)- rather than labelling + medicalising them = support them
- More female researchers in top positions
- Carry out study just on female psychology
Cultural bias
- When your own culture influences how you understand and judge other cultures
Ethnocentrism
- Belief that the ethnic group with which the individual identifies is superior to other groups. (Compare other cultures to your own-> your culture = superior
- Assumption other cultures are deviant/ abnormal
Example of Ethnocentrism
- Ainsworth Strange Situation- only reflected norms/ values in Western Culture -> cultural difference
- Problem- it is scientifically wrong- lead to discrimination
Ethnocentrism can lead to imposed etics- What is imposed etics?
- Where a construct from one culture is applied inappropriately to another
- E.g strange situation- studied behaviour in America + assumed their ideal attachment type could be applied universally
Cultural Relativism
- View that behaviour cannot be judged properly unless it is viewed in the context of the culture from which it originates.
- Understanding behaviours vary in different cultures
Example of Culture Relativism
- Cultural differences on food preferences- some cultures prefer “sweeter” foods- shaped by culture
- Aggression- can change in different cultures
AO3- What are the implications?
- Assumption other cultures are deviant
- Black- Americans more likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia- misunderstanding of cultural difference can have serious consequences
AO3 Consequences of Cultural bias
- E.g the use of IQ testing by the US army (bias towards people in America) before WWI -> based on performance in test they would be assigned a role in the army
- European immigrants results were below Americans (more likely to survive), and African- Americans had the lowest mental age (worst position in army- more likely to die)
- This data led to enduring stereotypes towards certain ethnic groups- lead to long- term prejudice- e.g of ethnocentrism- supporting discrimination
AO3- Avoiding cultural bias
- Emic approach- assumes cultures will be different- looking for cultural differences
- Using a range of cultures
- America + UK have funding to carry out research but other cultures don’t- want indigenous researchers
