issues terms

• gender


  the condition of being male, female or neutral. Sex refers to biological aspects of maleness of femaleness, whereas gender refers to a sense of masculinity or femininity.
• gender bias 


  any stereotypical beliefs about individuals on the basis of their sex, particuarly as related to the differential treatment of females and males.
• androcentrism


  belief that mens behaviour represents the norm and therefore any behaviour typical of women might be judged as abnormal
• alpha bias 


  misrepresentation of behaviour, researches overestimate gender deifferences
• beta bias


  misrepresentation of behaviour because researcher underestimates behaviour
• feminist psychology 


  an approach to psychological issues that emphasizes the role of the femal perspective in thought, action and emotion in the life of an individual and society. It is seen by its proponents as an attempt to counterbalance traditional male-oriented and male-dominated psychology.
• gender roles 


  a relatively fixed, overly simplified concept of the attitudes and behaviours considered normal and appropiate for a male or female in a particular culture. Gender stereotypes often support the social conditioning of gender roles
• sexism

  discriminatory and prejudicual beliefs and practices directed against one of the ttwo sexes, usually women
• sex discrimination 


  differential treatment of individuals on the basis of their biological sex. Most sex discrimination favours men over women
• sex-role stereotypes 


  a fixed, overly simplified concept of the social roles that are believed to be appropiate to males and to females
• women centered psychology 


  an approach to psychology that emphasizes the physical experciences that are particuarly characteristic of women
• Cultural Bias


  The tendency to ignore the cultural differences and interpret information through the 'lens' of our own culture ie. in 1992, 64% of the worlds psychology researchers were American
• Ethnocentrism


  Judging other cultures by the standards and values of one's own cultures and in extreme cases the superiority of one e.g. Ainsworth's strange situatio
• Cultural Relativism


  The idea that norms, values and morals can only be understood within a specific social and cultural context
• Etic


  Looks at behaviour outside of a culture and attempts to describe those behaviours as universal
• Emic

  Looks at behaviours within a certain culture an describes behaviour within that culture