Issues & debates Flashcards
Universality
Any nuderlying characteristic of human beings that is capable to being applied to all, despite differences of experience and upbringing
-Gender bias and culture bias threaten the universality of findings in psychology
Types of gender bias
Alpha bias
Beta Bias
Alpha bias
-Exaggerates differences between gender
-Differences presented as fixed and inevetible
-Sometimes heighten the value of women but often devalue women compared to men
-e.g Freud’s psychosexual theory
-e.g Chodorow suggetsted mothers and daughters have a greater connectedness than sons and mothers because of their biological similarities
-As aa result, women develop better abilities to bond with others and empathise
Beta bias
-Ignores or underestimates differences between genders
-When research findings equally apply to both women and men even when women are excluded from reasearch process
-e.g fight or flight response
-Biologocal research facours male animals because female behavioue is affected by regular hormonal changes due to ovulation
-Taylor introduced the Tend And Befriend response
-Oxytocin, love horone is more plentiful in women nd women respond to stress by increasing oxytocin
-Reduces fight or flght response and enhances tend and befriend
-Shows how research that miminises gender differences may result in a misrepresntation of womens behaviour
-e.g Attachment shows emotional care is provided by soley mother but research on role of fathers shows fathers can supply the emotional care often assumed to be the povince of women
What causes Alpha and beta bias
Androcentrism
Androcentrism
-Psychology presented a male dominated version of the world
-e.g American Psychological Assocition published a list of the 100 most influencal psyhologists of the 20th century with only 6 women
-Suggetsts psychology has traditionally been a subject roduced by men,for men and about men - an androcentric perspective
-Womens behvaiour if considered ha been misunderstood, and even pathologised - sign of mental illness
-Feminists have been objected to the diagnosti category, premenstrual syndrome , medicalising womens emotions
-Mens anger however has bee nseen as a rational response to external pressures (Uhlmann)
Gender bias evaluation
-Fiex and enduring, verbal vs spatial
-CP: multitasking, hemisheres
-Promotes sexism , Murphy
-Challenged gender biased research may not be published
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Ethnographic research
The study of social life and culture
-Gives participants a voice, anabing those studied to genuinley participate in research rather than being ojects of study
-Allows diversity within groups to be investigated rather than compariosns being made
Culture bias parts
Universality and bias
Ethnocentrism
Cultural relativsm
Cultural bias: Universality and bias
-Henrich reviwed srudies in leading psychoology journals and foudn that 68% of research participants came from the US and 96% from industrialised nations
-Another review found that research participants were psychology undergraduates
-Suggests what we know about human behaviour has a strong cultural bias
-Henrich coined the term WEIRD to decribe the group of people likely to be sutdied by psycholgoists - Westernised, Educated people from Industrial ,Rich Democracies
-If the norm for a particiular behaviour is set by WEIRD people, then the behvaiour from non -Westernised, leess educated , agricultural and poorer ciltures is seen as abnormal
Cultural bias : Ethnocentrism
-Form of cultural bias and is a belief in the superiority of ones cultural group
-e.g Strange situation , secure attachment was the norm
-Led to misinterpretation fo child rearing practices in other countries which were seen to deviate from the American norm
-eg Japan, more insecurely attached because of alot of distress on spertion
-Because Japanese babies were rarely spereated from mother
Cultural bias: Cultural relativism
Berry frew a distinction between etic and emic approaches in the study of human behvaiour
-Etic approach looks at behaviour from outside a given culture and attempts to describe those behvaiours as universal
-Emic approach finctions from inside a culture and identifies behvaiours that are specific to that culture
-e.g Ainsworth & Bell is imposed Etic
-They studied behvaiour in one culture and assumed their ideal attachment type could be applied universally
-Also how we define abnormality
-Berry argued psychlgoy has been guilty of an imposed etic aproach, arguing that theories, models, concepts are universal whhen they actully cam through emic research
-Suggests psycholgoist should be much more mindful of the cultural relaticism of ther research, that the things they disocver may only make snes from the perspective of the culture within which they wre discovered and being able to recognise this is one way of avoiding cultural bias in research
Culture bias evaluation
-Classic studies e.g Asch and Milhram , bond and smith
CP:No longer indiviual- collectivist distinction 14/15
-Emergence of Cultural psychology with emic approaches
-Ethinc stereotyping , eugenic social policies
Cultural bias
The tendency to judge all people in terms of your own cultrual assumptions
Cultrual relativism
The idea that we cannot judge behaviour properly unless it is viewed in the contect of the culture in which it origniates
