Issues and debates-Culture and gender bias

Question 1

Define gender bias

Answer 1

The differential treatment/ representation of men and women based on stereotypes rather than real differences

Question 2

Give an example of gender bias

Answer 2

Assuming that males are more aggressive than females

Question 3

What is alpha bias?

Answer 3

Exaggerated gender differences

Question 4

Give an example of alpha bias

Answer 4

-Freud
-Lived in a culture where males were superior to females and femininity is failed masculinity as women cannot undergo the Oedipus complex

Question 5

Define beta bias

Answer 5

Ignoring/minimising gender differences

Question 6

Give an example of beta bias

Answer 6

-Fight/flight response, female behaviour is misunderstood and blamed on female hormones

Question 7

What is androcentrism?

Answer 7

-Mental process of viewing the world from a male point of view

Question 8

Give an example of androcentrism

Answer 8

Using all male participants in a study and concluding that the results of the study are true for both women and men

Question 9

What are the Consequences associated with alpha and beta biases?

Answer 9

-Devalue one gender in comparison to the other (usually females)- Alpha
-Male researchers and most researchers have created most theories have used all male samples to represent a male worldview
-Androcentrism- female behaviour is misunderstood

Question 10

Give an evaluation point (Reducing gender bias using a feminist approach)

Answer 10

-Attempts to restore the imbalance in both psychological theories and research
-Feminist psychologists accept that there are biological differences between men and women and that these cannot be avoided but women can use these to their advantage
-Research carried out by Eagerly (1978)- females are less effective leaders than males but training programmes have been developed to reduce the lack of female world leaders

Question 11

Give an evaluation point (Females have progressed further in academic disciplines such as psychology)

Answer 11

-Resulted in changes in the methods of research and previously developed theories
-Carol Gilligan suggested that women have different moral understanding to men and compiled her theory of moral understanding
-This theory showed that women are different but neither justice focus nor care focus is better

Question 12

Give an evaluation point (Reverse alpha bias)

Answer 12

-Places emphasis on the value of women to counteract the gender differences between men and women
-Cornwell states women are better in areas such as learning as they are more attentive + organised than males
-Reverse alpha bias challenges the gender stereotypes that males are superior and better at everything
-Helps to alter people’s preconceptions

Question 13

Give an evaluation point (gender bias can work both ways)

Answer 13

-Alpha bias theories place value on women
-Chodorow (1978) viewed women as more relational + caring, another example is that women are more likely to be diagnosed + given treatment for depression
-May be because women are more likely to suffer from depression but also because the diagnostic system is biased towards them
-Expectations for males to pull themselves together and have masculine traits show flaws in the diagnostic system

Question 14

Define bias

Answer 14

-Learning in a particular direction is a systematic distortion in one’s attitude and beliefs based on prejudice/preexisting ideas

Question 15

Define culture

Answer 15

-The rules, customs, morals and ways of interacting that bind together members of society or some other collection of people

Question 16

Define cultural bias

Answer 16

-The tendency to judge all people in terms of your cultural assumptions, this distorts or biases your judgement

Question 17

Define ethnocentrism

Answer 17

-Seeing things from the point of view of ourselves / social groups of people visiting the standards + customs of your own culture

Question 18

What is the difference between individualism and collectivism

Answer 18

Individualism- compettive, focus on individual
Collectivism- cooperative, focus on group

Question 19

What are W.E.I.R.D participants

Answer 19

-Western, educated, industrialised, rich and democratic societies
-Represent as much as 80% of study participants it only 12% of the world population are not only unrepresentative of humans as a species but many measures their outliers

Question 20

What is the etic approach?

Answer 20

-Looks at behaviour from outside of a given culture and attempts to describe those behaviours that are universal

Question 21

What is the emic approach?

Answer 21

-Functions from within/inside certain cultures + identities and behaviours that are specific to that culture

Question 22

What is alpha bias in culture?

Answer 22

Theories that assume there are real and enduring differences between cultures, thus they may exaggerate the differences

Question 23

Give an example of alpha bias in culture

Answer 23

The distinction between individuals and collectivist culrtures

Question 24

What is beta bias in culture?

Answer 24

Theories that ignore/minimise cultural differences, do this by assuming that all people are the same and therefore it is reasonable to apply the same theories/ methods to all cultures

Question 25

Give an example of beta bias in culture

Answer 25

-IQ tests
-Seen as something within the individualist cultures
-Seen as a functional relationship depending on shared knowledge in collectivist cultures
-Non westerns may see it as less intelligent as IQ tests are made by Westerners

Question 26

Define Cultural relativism

Answer 26

The view that behaviour cannot be judged properly unless it is viewed in the context of the culture it originates from

Question 27

What is imposed etic?

Answer 27

When constructs/ findings in psychology are created by one culture but assumed to apply worldwide
EG. Ainsworths strange situation

Question 28

How do researchers make research less ethnocentric?

Answer 28

-Do not generalise studies to the wider population
-Have a varied population
-Couple with an Indigenous researcher
-Carry out cross-cultural research

Question 29

Give an evaluation for real-world effects (culture has)

Answer 29

-Significant real-world effects such as amplifying + validating damaging stereotypes
- The US Army IQ test before WW1 which was culturally biased towards the white majority questions such as who was the first American president this meant that African Americans were placed at the bottom of the IQ scale
=This had a negative effect on the attitude towards this group of people this proves the negative impact culturally biased research has

Question 30

Give an evaluation of cultural bias. (Ways to deal with culture bias)

Answer 30

-There are ways to deal with cultural bias such as recognising when it occurs
-Smith and Bond found that in their 1988 survey of European textbooks on social psychology that 66% of the studies were American 32% European and only 2% of the rest of the world
-Shows that psychological research is very under presentive
-Can be avoided by selecting different cultural groups to study

Question 31

Give an evaluation for cultural bias (the development of Indigenous psychology)

Answer 31

Awareness of cultural bias has led to people’s experiences in different cultural contexts
Afrocentriscm suggests that because all black people have their roots in Africa they must recognise the African context of behaviours + Attitudes This is known as the emic approach which emphasises the uniqueness of each culture and looks at the behaviour from inside the culture
This serves importance as it has led to the emergence of theories that are more relevant to the lives and cultures of not only those in Africa but also people far from their native country

Question 32

Give an evaluation for cultural bias (the progression in diagnosing mental disorders)

Answer 32

-Early versions of the American DSM system ignored disorders that are found mainly/exclusively in non-American cultures
-The DSM IV in 1991 acknowledged the inadequacy of this approach and produced a short appendix on culture-bound syndromes found in other parts of the world
Although Kleirman and Cohen (1997) dismissed the appendix as they pointed out detailed research in several Western cultures and found many disorders totally ignored
Examples included the fear of wind in China