issues & debates Flashcards
SPECIFICATION: Gender and culture in Psychology – universality and bias. Gender bias including androcentrism and alpha and beta bias;
what is universality?
characteristics of human beings that are capable of being applied to all, despite differences of experience and upbringing
how does universality link to psychology?
the aim of psychology is to produce theories that have universality and
apply to all people
bias & universality…
bias threatens the universality of findings in psychology
what is gender bias?
the differential treatment and/or representation of males and females
what is alpha bias?
psychological theories that exaggerate or overestimate differences between the sexes
what is an example of alpha bias?
-freud argued that there are genuine psychological differences between men and women
-his theory suggests that women are inferior as young girls suffer from
‘penis envy’, and he viewed femininity as failed form of masculinity
why is alpha bias an issue?
there is a misrepresentation of behaviour because researchers overestimate/exaggerate gender differences
what is beta bias?
theories that ignore or minimise differences between the sexes
when does beta bias usually occur?
when only one sex has been studied & it is assumed that the other sex would act in the same way
(e.g only males and it is ASSUMED that females would act in the same way)
example of beta bias:
Asch + Milgram
-all male samples but applied
findings to males and females
Fight/Flight
-documented as being universal, but only tested male species (women “tend and befriend”)
why is beta bias an issue?
in the case of beta bias there is a
misrepresentation of behaviour because researchers minimise gender differences
what is androcentrism?
-a male centred view of the world -when ‘normal’ behaviour is judged
according to a male standard (meaning that female behaviour is often judged to be ‘abnormal’ or ‘deficient’ by comparison)
examples of androcentrism:
