Issues and Debates: Gender Bias- AO3 Flashcards
What is one strength of gender bias?
It has led to contemporary psychologists looking for ways to reduce bias.
What is a study you can use when talking in support of gender bias?
Cornwell et al (2013)
Outline Cornwell et al’s procedure.
They Produced identical CVs for a position as lab manager and randomly assigned the CVs to a male or female name. They then randomly sent them to different STEM professors within the department and asked them to rate the candidates in terms of competency, hire-ability and their willingness to mentor them if they got the job.
What were the 3 aspects the professors in Cirnwell et al’s study were asked to are the candidates by?
Competency
Hire-ability
Willingness to mentor them if they get the job
Outline Cornwell et al’s findings.
They found that despite identical CV’s both male and female professors rated the male candidate as more competent and hireable, and they were more likely to mentor them.
What does Cornwell et al’s findings show? What has this lead to?
Their findings show an unconscious gender bias within the academic setting which could be generalised to society as a whole. The study raised awareness of this and as a result, many institutions adopted bias training to educate staff about unconscious biases.
Overall what is the strength of research such as Cornwell et al’s?
This type of research helps to overcome sexist attitudes and biases in research publications.
List 3 weaknesses of gender bias.
Research addressing gender bias is not always published
Promotes sexism in the research process
Gender differences are seen as fixed
What research can be used when talking about research addressing gender bias not being published?
Formanowicz (2018)
Outline Formanowics’ procedure.
He analysed 1000 articles related to gender bias
What did Formanowics find?
He found that this research is funded less and is featured in less prestigious journals. He also found that this was still true when compared to ethnic biases and other factors were controlled
What is the implication of Formanowics’ findings?
Suggests that gender bias may still not be taken as seriously as other types of bias in the research process
What research can be used when talking about gender bias promoting sexism in the research process?
Murphy et al (2014) and Nicolson (1995)
What did Murphy et al argue? What does this lead to?
Murphy et al argued that research is more likely to be conducted by males as there is a lack of women appointed to senior positions at universities.
This leads to male researchers expecting female participants to be irrational and unable to complete complex tasks,
What does Nicolson (1995) suggest
Nicolson calls for a shift away from the perception that female participants are irrational and unable to complete complex tasks otherwise this could mean that the institutional structures & methods of psychology may produce findings which are gender biased
