Issues & Debates : Gender

Question 1

Whats a bias?

Answer 1

A persons views that are distorted in some way

Question 2

Where does bias come from?

Answer 2

Individual held beliefs and values that reflect social and historical influences that they’ve experiences.

Question 3

What is gender bias?

Answer 3

The different treatment of males and females, based on stereotypes and not real differences

Question 4

Maccoby and Jacklin (1974) – only differences between males and females

Answer 4

Evidence confirmed through cross-cultural studies…
- Girls have greater verbal ability
- Boys have greater visual and spatial abilities
- Boys have greater arithmetical ability (difference only appears at adolescence)
-Girls are less aggressive

Question 5

What is universality?

Answer 5

The attempt to establish conclusions that can be applied to everyone, regardless of time or culture

Question 6

How do bias’ undermine universality?

Answer 6

Psychology aims to identify facts that are objective and value free.

Question 7

What is androcentrism?

Answer 7

Centred on or dominated by males or the male viewpoint. In the past, most psychologists were male therefore theories tend to represent a male view of the world. This affects psychological research as it provides misleading or inaccurate representation on how the general public would respond.

Question 8

What is the alpha bias?

Answer 8

tendency to over-empathise differences between male and females, presenting them as fixed and inevitable. Consequences lead to stereotypes and one gender is devalued.

Question 9

Examples of alpha bias?

Answer 9

• Freud (1905) Oedipal conflict and penis envy
• Chodorow (1968) – women develop between bonds and empathy with daughters vs sons, bc they’re connected biologically
  -Evolutionary approach – compares humans to animal kingdom (eg lions)

Question 10

Whats beta bias?

Answer 10

Tendency to ignore or downplay differences between males and females and assumes insights derived from studies of men will equally apply to women.

Question 11

Examples of beta bias?

Answer 11

• Fight or flight – carried out on male animals (Taylors 2000 tend/ befriend)
• Kohlbergs moral development – all Ps male (Gillian 1982 found women focus on relationships when making moral decisions)
  -Milgram 1963, Asch 1951, Zimbardo 1973 all only male sample

Question 12

Strengths of gender research…

Answer 12

• Led to contemporary psychologists reducing it → Cornwall et al (2013) found females showed advantages in learning (more attentive and organised), emphasising positive attributes of women
• Implementing research criteria to ensure non-gender bias studies → Worrell (1992) proposed several criteria (eg. Employing alternative methods to explore the personal lives of women, considering women in their natural settings, collaborating w research Ps to examine personally relevant variables)

Answer 13

• Sexism that led to androcentrism → Murphy et al (2014) argued research more likely to be conducted by males as there’s a lack of women appointed at senior research positions in Unis
• Research that challenges gender bias is often not published → Formanowicz (2018) analysed 1000 articles relating to gender bias and found that the research is less funded and features less in prestigious journals

-Gender differences presented as fixed → Maccoby & Jacklin (1974) concluded that girls have better verbal ability and boys have better spatial ability due to biological brain differences (however, Joel et al (2015) used brain imaging and found so differences)