Gender Bias

• Gender bias refers to the failure to consider adequate differences between men and women within psychological research
• Historically, there has been a predominance of research based on samples of men
• Alpha bias is the overemphasis on differences between men and women
• Beta bias is when there is an underestimation of differences between men and women
• Gender bias generally has an overemphasis on the importance of biology as the driver of behaviour
• We can see gender bias in fight or flight research where all early research was conducted on male animals and generalised the results to everyone. This displays a beta bias. Taylor conducted research (2000) and found females are more likely to tend and befriend in order to protect their offspring
• Evolutionary theory of relationships shows an alpha bias- might suggest that promiscuity in men is normal and acceptable whilst promiscuity in women is abnormal and unacceptable
• Gender bias may result in androcentrism- the belief that men's behaviour represents the norm and therefore any behaviour typical of a women might be judged as abnormal
• Maccoby and Jacklin looked at many studies suggesting men and women had differences- women better with verbal abilities and men better at spatial (but brain scans don't support this)
• Not much research into non-binary people