Issues and debates 3 Flashcards
Gender bias: Universality and bias
Universality and Bias: psychologist seek universality but bias may be inevitable despite psychologists claims about discovering facts, as psychologists are products of their time and place
gender bias : alpha bias
Alpha bias: exaggerates differences, presented as inevitable, tends to devalue females. eg. girls have weaker identification with same-sex parent, so weaker conscience (Freud), boys lack connectedness to mother so less empathy (Chodorow)
gender bias: beta bias
Beta bias: underestimates differences when conducting research e.g fight or flight based on male and animals assumed to b universal, tend and befriend more common in female (Taylor)
gender bias: androcentrism
Androcentrism: leads to alpha/ beta bias, normal behaviour is judged from male standards eg aggression explained by PMS, male anger seen as rational (Brescoll and Uhlmann)
Gender bias A03
*differences as fixed, Maccoby and Jacklin found girls have a superior verbal and boys spatial but Joel found no biological differences, popularised because of social stereotypes of girls as talkers and boys as doers, should be wary of accepting findings as biological when it’s stereotypes
Counter: differences, women better at multitasking, more connections, don’t exaggerate
*Sexism, women underrepresented, undergraduate intakes are women but lectures are male, research by males leaves women at a disadvantage as they expect them to be irrational so they underperform
*research challenging gender bias may not be published, Formanowicz analysed over 1000 articles about gender bias over 8 yrs and found it’s underfunded and published less by prestigious journals, less awareness and application, true when compared to other biases eg ethnic bias other factors controlled, gender bias not taken as seriously
Gender bias examples
Alpha bias: Freud, Bowlby, relationships
Beta bias: fight or flight, Asch, Zimbardo, Milgram
Cultural bias: Universality and Bias
*Henrich found 68% of research ppt came from US, 96% from industrialised nations
*WEIRD describes people most likely to be studied in research- Westernised, Educated people form Industralised nations, Rich Democracies- people not WEIRD are seen as abnormal and inferior
Cultural bias: Ethnocentrism
*ethnocentrism: judging cultures by the standards of one’s own culture, extreme= superiority and prejudices
SS: reflects western culture, characterised moderate distress as secure attachment leading to misinterpretation of child rearing practises in other countries eg Japan Takahashi
Cultural bias: Cultural relativism
*Berry said etic is looking at behaviour from the outside of a culture and describing those as universal
Emic is looking at functions inside a culture identifying behaviour specific to that culture
SS: impose etic as it looks at American culture to assume ideal attachment that can be applied universally
defining abnormalities can also be culture bound, imposed etic
*psychology suffers from imposed etic as models, theories applied universally when it was based on sing,e culture, being able to recognise cultural bias is a way to combat it
Cultural bias A03
*Classic studies are culturally bias, eg Milgram and Asch, replications show different results, in collectivist countries conformity was higher than US individualistic culture, social influence only applied to individualistic
Counter: increased media globalisation means no distinction of individualistic and collectivist cultures (explain each culture), Takano and Osaka found 14/15 studies of US and Japan showed no evidence of individualistic or collectivism- distinction is lazy and is plastic, cultural bias less of an issue recently
*emergence of cultural psychology, Cohen: study of how people shape and are shaped by cultural experience, avoid ethnocentric assumptions by taking an emic approach with research inside a culture with local researchers and culturally based techniques, modern researchers are aware of cultural bias and avoid
*led to prejudice, Gould: first intelligent test led to eugenic social policies in US, first IQ test after WW1 were ethnocentric eg assuming everyone knows names of US president so se Europe and Africans had lowest score, racist discourse about genetic inferiority of ethnic minorities=mentally unfit compared to white, cultural bias can justify prejudice and discrimination
Cultural bias examples
Strange situation
Defining abnormalities
Free will and Determinism: Free will
*notion that humans can make choices and their behaviour/thoughts are not determined by biological or external forces
*doesn’t deny that there may be biological and environmental forces exerting some influence on behaviour, but implies we are able to reject these forces if we wish because we are in control
*it is advocated by the humanistic approach.
Free will and Determinism: determinism
*Individuals behaviour is shaped by internal or external forces not their will
*hard determinism: all behaviour is caused by something, free will is an an illusion, fatalism
*soft determinism: behaviour may be predictable, but there is room for choice from a limited range of possibilities, William James, important in cognitive
Free will and Determinism: types of determinism
*biological determinism: behaviour is caused by biological influences that we can’t control, biological app.
*Environmental determinism: behaviour is caused by features of the environment that we can’t control, Skinner
*Psychic determinism: behaviour is caused by unconscious psychodynamic conflicts that we can’t control, Freud, no such thing as an accident can be explained by unconscious
Free will and Determinism: scientific emphasises on casual explanations
*Every event has a cause, and causes can be explained through general laws
*Knowledge of causes and formulation of laws are important to allow scientists to predict and control future events
*Lab experiments enables casual relationships to be shown where all variables can be controlled
