culture and gender bias

• culture bias: when studies do not account for non-weird samples
• ethnocentric: the belief in superiority of one's own cultural group. Our own perspective is taken as a standard by which we measure other cultures
• culture: the beliefs and customs that a group of people share - child-rearing practices
• cultural relativism: where behaviour cannot be judged properly unless it is viewed in the context of what it originates in
• imposed etic: where you wrongfully assume that behaviour is universal

  emic: specific to culture

  etic: universal
• strength:

  • Takano and Osaka: found that 14/15 studied that compared between the USA and Japan's found that there was no evidence of individualism, collectivist (focus on the needs of the group) cultures are becoming more similar due to globalisation
• weakness:

  • historically, research has been bias within psychology, shown in Asch, Zimbardo. Means there is limited information on social influence as its relative to western culture and shouldn't inform us about universal behavior
  • led to prejudice and negative stereotypes. IQ tests on african amercians suggested that they were mentally unfit and feeble minded.
• gender bias: treat one individual or group differently, proving research which doesn't represent both experiences
• alpha bias: exaggerated differences between sexes, likely to devalue females in relation to males

  • Sheridan and King; obedience with dogs, females were less likely to shock dogs whereas the males were more likely
  • freud; psychological stages, females have a week superego and are more deviant
• beta bias: ignores and minimises the differences between sexes, when a gender is not included in the research and so it is presumed that it applies to both sexes

  • zimbardo and asch; represented only males in their experiments but concluded with both
• androcentrism: consequence of beta bias, when male behaviour is viewed as the norm and females is abnormal
• avoid and overcome gender bias:

  • draw conclusions in relation to genders used in study
  • include male and female researchers/participants
  • be reflexive - reflect and avoid own bias
  • don't exaggerate findings
• Maccoby and Jacklin (1974): found that there were gender differences that were hardwired into brains before birth

  • girls = verbal ability
  • boys = spatial awareness
• evaluation of gender bias:

  weakness:

  • historical sexism and bias in research studies - socially sensitive
  • men have been presumed the role in society as being 'better than females'
  • murphy (2014) psychology is participated by females and taught by male lecturers - males more likely to study female behavior